“Read out that weather forecast again,” I said.

Martin rustled his newspaper. “The week will begin with clouds and sunshine and a few showers,” he intoned. “High pressure building over Scotland at midweek should lessen the wind and increase sunshine.”

I switched the windscreen wipers to full speed and witnessed their failure to cope with the cataract of water falling from a grey-brown sky. The M6 was also failing to cope. Traffic was down to 20 mph. The outside lane was a river.

“Hm,” I said. “A few showers, eh?”

Early August ’92 was proving difficult to plan for. I had suggested two possibilities to Martin. The first was to sail around Skye, counter-clockwise from Kyleakin. In the event of inclement weather, not unknown on Skye, Plan B involved sailing northwards and ‘seeing how far we could get’. These ideas eroded quickly in the rainstorms we met as we sped north. The last bright patch was seen at Carlisle. Stirling and Central Scotland dripped under a leaden sky. No prizes for guessing what the weather was doing in Glencoe: Buchaille Etive Mor looked even more intimidating than usual. The 0033 Shipping Forecast increased the gloom; ‘gales later’. We pressed on to Plockton, but we shared the same unspoken thought: when should we head back tomorrow?

Tuesday dawned calm, but not clear. We decided to commit ourselves, but the first leg would be to a safe haven not too far away. We quickly prepared Footloose, a Mirror 16. We cleared the moorings shortly after 1230 in a gusty breeze and passed Cat Island (Eilean a’ Chait) at 1240. The overcast sky made the beat out of the loch more dismal than it should have been. After a while it brightened a little and we had a pleasurable sail, with little heavy air. However, the gale warnings had been repeated in the early morning forecast and I had no wish to be storm-bound miles away at the end of the week, and be tempted to make a dash for it in unsuitable conditions in order to get back on time.

We agreed that we should not chance Skye’s iron-bound north-west coast unless the weather prospects improved dramatically. Soon we were nosing into the twin bays south of Camusterrach to see if they could offer us a safe harbour. I liked the look of Poll Domhain immediately. We had a good look around and then nosed into ‘Rowan Tree Bay’ (see chart 1) to find that the holding was good and its steep sides kept out all wind.

The bouldery sides hampered traffic between the boat and the shore, but commuting was at least possible, if uncomfortable, at all states of the tide without wetting the feet or having to use the little inflatable. The northern shore is densely wooded and some mountain ash has found its way on to the steep rock face on the southern side. In the absence of a charted name for this separate bay within Poll Domhain, I felt that ‘Rowan Tree’ therefore suited it very well. The inverted commas indicate that the name is not ‘official’. I dropped anchor in the centre of the bay as we approached the point where the rock face ends and I also belayed to a convenient boulder ashore.

On our way in we passed a very welcome sight: a thriving community of seals on the NW rocks of Ard Ban. There were a lot of young ones, which was heartening. While we were settling in after dropping anchor, half-a-dozen or more swam over to inspect us. Footloose did not seem to daunt them as bigger boats might have done and they elected to stay, discreet and watchful in the background. Later, as the light failed, they became more confident…

A brown, peaty burn flows into the head of the bay, where there is a patch of green just big enough for a mountain tent. Martin pitched his about a hundred yards further up the bank, above the tree-line, in the hope that the midges patrolled the wood only. He was disappointed. Soon his traditional first meal of home-produced chicken korma had been prepared and eaten. We washed it down with a bottle of wine, cool from the burn.

Bad weather was obviously building somewhere behind the Cuillin and the rain came on more frequently, but our site was comfortable enough. I collected a small bucketful of the mussels which clung to the low-tide rocks like bunches of flattened black grapes. They were left in clean water overnight to give them time to eject any sand grains before cooking.

“As long as the gale stays in the south-west, we won’t even feel it in here,” I thought with some satisfaction as I wriggled into my bag. I tied back the flaps of the tent on Footloose and tuned in ready for the 0033 forecast. I realised that I was not the only one listening to ‘A Book at Bedtime’ when snufflings and gurglings came from behind me. When I caught the seals in the light from my torch they crash-dived with a tremendous splashing. I lay back and soon they were on station again. Peering through the opening, I made out four or five bullet heads grouped about ten yards away, watching another making its way towards the boat. Obviously they were playing the seal version of ‘chicken’.

“Anywhere else you would be regarded as hooligans and yobboes,” I told them. Another watery commotion as they disappeared. They became bolder with the light out and the radio off and I occasionally sensed the turbulence as they dived under the boat. More disconcerting was the odd twitch on the anchor warp, which made Footloose yaw about. By that time, however, I was preoccupied with the Shipping Forecast: SW force 8 becoming north-west severe gale force 9 later in our area only! I was sure that a f9 wind blowing straight into the cove would be more than we could cope with in such a confined space with a stony beach behind us. The best option seemed to be a quick return to Plockton in the morning. Once there, we could either sit it out or abort the cruise.

The 0555 forecast merely confirmed the worst, which I relayed to Martin at 0645. What a way to be awoken! The morning was dull. The horizon was a thick charcoal line ruled below the cloud-swathed Cuillin silhouette. We had a hefty bacon breakfast and by the time we had struck camp and battened everything down in the boat it was 1000 hrs. Footloose’s log for August 5th makes strange reading:

1015 Left cove at Poll Domhain for Plockton 1035 Arrived cove at Poll Domhain 1250 Left cove at Poll Domhain for Loch Torridon 1310 Arrived cove at Poll Domhain

Our first attempt to leave did not get us further than Ard Ban point. The wind coming over the hill in the main anchorage was bad enough, but outside it the gale was blowing straight from the Crowlins, the direction we had to lay. We returned to our glassy-calm pool dripping with saltwater, got out of our oilskins and went exploring instead!

Despite the steady f8, the sun came out and the day became more pleasant than we had anticipated. This led to our second attempt to leave. We reefed down the small main before we left, believing that it would cope with anything we would meet — I had asked Jeckylls to put in one line of reef points as an afterthought: the area of the full sail was less than the deep reef on the standard main anyway. We drew level with Sgeir Mhor and turned northwards, off the wind. Our speed was electrifying. I told Martin that I would consider the boat to be out of control unless it was possible to make some progress to windward if necessary. Accordingly, we swung Footloose’s nose to windward to try it, and plunged into the unsettled water NW of Sgeir Mhor.

Note — lack of space precludes including a general chart, but see Bulletin 133

The wind was a solid wall. The boat lay on her ear and resolutely refused to come fully upright. We eased her off slightly and she took off. She was reluctant to ‘hobby-horse’ and her sharp stem went through, rather than over, the crests of the seas. These were very steep with short intervals, the result of wind-strength and a shoaling bottom. The water poured over the foredeck like a horizontal waterfall, washed around our feet and disappeared eventually down the centre-case drains. In the brilliant sunshine the breaking waves were thrown into sharp definition, like shards of green glass. We stayed out just long enough to prove the old maxim that a boat can always take more than its crew, then we nursed her back into Poll Domhain. I was more than ever glad of the self-draining floor and the extra strength I had built into the hull, but I was convinced that another one or two reef-points would enable the boat to be sailed off a pretty dire lee shore, as long as the crew did not have to sit it out for long — as a last resort rather than an acceptable tactic, obviously.

We went for a walk along the headland track and had a pleasant surprise. What had appeared to be an impossibly rocky southernmost corner turned out to be comfortably upholstered with rubbery seaweed. This berth, large enough for two or three dinghies, lies behind a tall rock which springs from the centre of the channel and looks splendidly independent with its own crown of scrubby bushes and vegetation. We immediately christened it ‘St Michael’s Mount’. Much heartened, we explored the rest of the peninsula at our leisure, finding the ancient drystone well which serves the crofts and coming upon a 27-foot James Wharram Tane‑class catamaran moored NW of ‘St Michael’. Afterwards we brought Footloose round under outboard motor after taking our leave of ‘Rowan Tree Bay’ or, as it would be in Gaelic if that were its name, Camus Uinscann, which sounds sweet however you pronounce it.

After our huge evening meal the weather worsened dramatically. We walked to Toscaig in the rain and wind to use the public telephone. Part of the news from home was that storms were threatening to delay some of the tall ships heading for Liverpool at the end of the Columbus Regatta. I did not harp on the effect they were having on our plans. An advantage of the weather was that we were able to approach two deer closely without being heard, one in a field with the sheep and one browsing in the garden of a ruined cottage. On the way back in the failing light, thoroughly soaked, we wondered whether we would have arrived in Torridon and found an anchorage by that time, had we succeeded in leaving… I boarded Footloose just as she floated.

I had a bow line around a large boulder on the high water line and an anchor with two fathoms of chain on a stern warp which I had laid out at low water. The wind was blowing hard and steady, still from the SW, when I retired to bed. The stern line came through a fairlead on the transom and was made fast round the thwart by my head. I could sit up and reach the cleat on the foredeck to which the bow line was made fast. The wind held in the SW, blowing hard, but not at ‘severe force 9’. That came when it went cyclonic and blew from the NW in the middle of the night.

We were well protected from it, but the canvas tent made a good storm trysail and attempted to propel us around the cove, thus confirming my long-held belief that tent covers should be big enough to house you and no more. I am quite sure that I did not actually invent the sport of sailing a boat from one’s bunk using two mooring lines to steer it — that honour is bound to belong to some founding father (or mother) of the DCA — but I did perfect some of the more advanced moves that night. Unfortunately it could never become a spectator sport. Morning found us in a different position, but completely unscathed.

Morning also brought a distinct drop in wind strength and the promise of a fine day. The general forecast contained the gem, ‘… so if you have hay to gather in, wherever you are in Britain, today is the day to do it…’ Well, we were determined to make hay while the sun shone, certainly. We watched the sea subsiding miraculously throughout the morning while we basked in the sun in our anchorage — definitely the best one in the area, we decided. We left at 1330 after 3-4 hours of rising tide. Having spent two days either worrying about bad weather or coping with it, we had the feeling of being let off the leash at last. The glittering white shell-sand beach below the crofts showed vividly why Ard Ban (White Point) is so named as we steered across the Sound to Scalpay.

We marvelled at the change, but there was still some residual swell and a lot of cloud appeared by mid-afternoon — not quite perfect for hay-making — so oilskins were preferable to shirtsleeves most of the time. The north-westerly died, then was reincarnated as a superb SW sailing breeze. As we closed Scalpay, we encountered the Wharram cat just off the skerry north of Longay, being sailed by man and wife with their two young children on board. We were the only craft out enjoying the calm after the storm and there was a sense of kinship in his cheerful hail to us across the water. I photographed them and they passed some flattering remarks about Footers, who was cutting a bit of a dash with the sun on her crimson sails, pale blue hull and varnished brightwork. We waved them past, then shaped a course to pass just inside Sgeir Dhearg and Sgeir Thraid to close Skye and round Scalpay, via The Narrows.

“Not much freeboard on that catamaran, is there?” said Martin. “I wouldn’t like to cruise these waters in that.”

I burst out laughing. “And what do you think he’s saying about us? We’re eleven feet shorter, with only one hull!”

The wind headed us in the sound between Scalpay and Raasay. I wanted to cover some distance while the weather held, so I declined the challenge of strenuous tacking for the next three or four miles and started the engine. We were able to make soup and coffee with hot water from our flasks as we punched along at 4k, despite taking some spray over the bows.

The Skye end of the sound was hard to spot at first. Martin seized on the obvious clue: Scalpay does not have roads, so when holiday traffic was seen at the foot of the mountains ahead it had to be on Skye; time to turn left! We were both impressed with the sheltered Narrows of Scalpay. We came off the wind, the sun came out and we discarded the waterproof layers. The Skye hills were sunlit, but still had cloud boiling off their tops, which allowed me to take some memorable photographs. Shortly after we turned south, we saw a huge herd of red deer on Scalpay opposite the entrance to Loch Ainort, moving steadily in single file up a low ridge that ran alongside the shore, and disappearing one by one over the shoulder of a hill. We slid past quietly below them.

Once clear of Scalpay, we sailed close inside Guillamon Island, whose rocky shore did not seem to promise any landing-place, and then on past low, flat Pabay. The forecast had promised one settled day, so we steered south of the Crowlin Islands for the mouth of Loch Carron. This would put us close to our base should the weather turn nasty again and it would allow us to take a long-awaited look around that area. It was a long haul of 12 miles from south of Scalpay to Plockton over a broad expanse of water. We had an excellent run before a SW 3, despite a following sea on our starboard quarter.

The sun shone, the waves sparkled and we encountered only one large fishing boat and two yachts throughout. The racing fleet was making fine use of the wind when we arrived, with 27 boats on the water, so we dog-legged north out of its way. They were still running races scheduled for the regatta of the previous week, when high winds had prevented any sailing.

I thought I recalled reading somewhere that the Strome Islands offered a good anchorage. This was wrong, because they turned out to be an evil little group of rocky skerries with outliers just below the surface. Then the wind actually died completely and as it was getting late we were denied our leisurely search for a night’s berth. Through the gap between Ulluva and the mainland I could see what appeared to be a rough slipway in front of a ruined cottage on the shore. We ghosted between Ulluva and Eilean na Creige Duibhe past another thriving seal colony, to find that it was in fact just a patch of shore free of rocks — but it was more than adequate to dry out on. The broken-down cottage garden walls provided us with a camp kitchen and Martin was able to pitch his tent on the strip of cropped grass in front of it. By the time we had landed it was about 2030 and we realised that our luck was in: we had found the ideal place purely by accident. Despite our late start, we had logged 28 miles since 1330, an average speed of exactly 4k. Erecting the tent cover during dewfall meant that it was impossible to dry the boat, but it was warm enough and it would have taken more than a damp bag to prevent my sleeping that night!

While I was stowing the tent at 0710 a handsome train in maroon livery trundled by, just behind the trees backing the shore. Later enquiries revealed that it was the Skye Railway, the ‘iron road to the isles’ which links the two coasts of northern Scotland. It was 1100 hrs before we could tear ourselves away from this delectable spot, after an endless breakfast in the sunshine. (See further notes under (8) on chart no. 2).

We drifted past pine-clad Eilean na Creige Duibhe and the seal colony, but I was able to photograph only one; they were more shy than their rough country cousins in Poll Domhain. Firstly, we took a peek into Loch Reraig, sailing inside the little island which guards its southern headland, Eilean na Beinne. Reraig offers a lovely sandy beach, surrounded by low hills and pine trees. We then sailed down Loch Carron, noting that we were still able to see the Cuillin silhouette of Skye up to 30 miles away. A steady SW soldier’s wind allowed us to run quietly down the 8 miles to the head of the loch. This gave me the chance to inspect the NW shore closely, map and pencil to hand. (There are few sheltered places on the SE banks.) This has been written up as chart no. 2, in the hope that some might find it helpful in future.

I have had the odd reproof for recommending some pretty austere places to members in earlier articles. I do not think that anyone could find Carron too wild. The hills surrounding it are impressive, but not high enough to generate unexpected squalls. The head of the loch is very reminiscent of the English Lakes, with the line of the hills softened by lots of woodland.

On the NW shore between Strome Wood and Loch Carron town there are lush meadows on the hillside with bright farmhouses dotted here and there sheltered by copses, which we found very un-Scottish. I suggested it was like Switzerland; Martin thought it more like parts of Scandinavia. On the south shore the old Strome ferry slip seemed to offer good launching facilities as an alternative to Plockton. Approaching the white houses of Loch Carron (once known as Jeantown) I felt that no other coastal township I had seen looked prettier in the sunshine, Tobermory included.

We sailed out of the loch to look at the islands on the east side of Plockton headland. From there, we entered the gap east of Kishorn Island and so into Loch Kishorn. Luckily the sun was still shining, for Kishorn is the bleakest place I have seen in this area, wide open to the prevailing wind, surrounded by high mountains and lacking in shelter. From the water there is a fantastic view of the famous, or infamous, Applecross road, which seems to have been lasered across the line of the gullies on the spectacular face of Sgurr a Ghabracharn, straight as an arrow to the pass of Bealach na Ba. It was the sun winking on the windscreens of cars seemingly halfway up the cliff which first drew my attention.

We saw where the gigantic oil rigs were once constructed and noticed new activity on a big scale on the NW shore, but even in the mellow afternoon sun it was a place to give one the shivers — it would be so easy to become embayed there in a sudden south-westerly blow — and so we left it without inspecting the village of Ardarroch.

It had been a long day with another 22 miles on the log after starting late and so we headed straight back to the village, cutting inside Cat Island for the hell of it — something you are not supposed to do with lighthouses on rocks. The famous lug-rigged two-master Ron Glas (Grey Seal), heroine of single-handed transatlantic races, was riding to a buoy in the fairway when we arrived. We hauled out on the club slip and lowered the mast. There were palm trees in the garden just to the left of us and across the bay the bluffs of Creag an Duilisg glowed pink in the evening sun above a pale blue sea. As a Scot said to me while we were discussing the cruise later, when the sun shines in this spot you could be anywhere in the world — except Scotland!

Believe it or not, the very same man was ‘guilty’ of getting the Plockton Hotel to stock draught Guinness, although I was at the time unaware of this as I took long pulls at the stuff later that evening, alternating with slow sips of Highland Park malt. I pondered sadly that easy access to pubs has to be sacrificed in most ‘wilderness’ sailing. Unbelievably, the sky was cloudless and windless the following morning, but we had to return. There was scarcely more than 60 miles under the keel in total, but the weather had played its part and we were as weary as we might expect to be after a real marathon. In any case, we had no cause for complaint, as we had almost ended the whole enterprise on the first day. So this story has an obvious moral — for those who need one.