Tern's Travels

Rona to Mallaig, 7-14 August
Rona is privately owned with holiday accommodation and some island produce such as venison, presented as "Robinson Crusoe in luxury", all very enterprising. Fortunately there is still some room to anchor amidst the visitor's moorings and I enjoyed a walk ashore and a swim while Larry attended to his list of boat jobs.(Well, I do all the cooking and cleaning). Although Skye was just across the sound to our west we decided to leave such a big project as exploring it to the future and decided to continue south. Heading the tide down the Inner Sound, we set off next day gently sailing to Plockton.
Plockton has a great reputation and we were fans of the Hamish Macbeth TV series about a village policeman which was filmed thereabouts so we had to go there. It was a shock to be amongst so many boats! However, it had an end of season feel and was quiet with plenty of room to anchor in the bay. Our stroll ashore (in the rain) felt nostalgic as we recognised locations but we were surprised that a village with so many visiting boats as well as land-based tourists had so few provisioning facilities. Nevertheless, the setting is beautiful with perfect shelter. Our night was so calm that there was thick mist in the morning but it cleared as we caught the morning tide under the bridge to Skye and through Loch Alsh and Kyle Rhea, pushing 11 knots in the narrows! The mainland side has some of the most remote wilderness and mountains in Scotland. The forests of Glensheil, Kintail and Inverinate are vast and largely free of roads; I take my hat off to those who have explored them. To the west is Skye with some 60 anchorages listed in our Scottish Islands 'bible', just waiting for further exploration: ah well, let's hope we can carry on cruising for a few more years!
In no time we were anchored in Sandaig Bay amongst the Sandaig islands, where Gavin Maxwell lived in his house, Camusfearna, with his pet otter, Edal. Walking on the mainland forest tracks we had great views but it has an air of industrial dereliction due to the forestry methods. The islands are still pristine and popular with 'wild campers'. Camusfearna burnt down taking Edal with it and both Edal's and Gavin Maxwell's ashes are buried near the bay.
Mallaig is just 10NM further south and we had wind on the beam-hurrah-sailing! But it didn't last and we motored the last hour into Mallaig. A spell of bad weather was forecast so we stopped for four nights while it went through. We had plenty of time to provision etc and it's a busy stopping point for many boats. We met Ian Nicholson, an inspiration at 92 and still sailing, working as a yacht surveyor and OCC rep for the Clyde area. We suffered a bout of food poisoning from some mussels so the bad weather went largely unnoticed and next we headed for the Small Isles: Muck, Eigg, Rum and Canna.