We parked up the car and walked down to the boatyard. At the shop we met Chris and Ruth, who offered us a lift in the back of the van. We gratefully accepted, but said we had to go and see Tim and Jenny first. They gave us a wonderful present for the trip: a bottle of Nights Watch, Oban Distillery’s latest signature edition, and the world’s smallest jigsaw. Then it was into the back of Chris and Ruth;s van for a lift to the boatyard.
Rowing out to Avy-J in Balvicar Bay for the last time, we were pleased that we could leave the dinghy on the mooring – Bill had promised to retrieve it and stash it at Hitler’s Bunker. (Seil water rats will know where this is).
We dropped the mooring at 13.45 and motored over to Craobh to meet up with Darren, our friend, boatbuilder and crew for the next four weeks. At Craobh I changed the engine oil, Darren fitted the new batteries and we filled the water tank.Finally at 17.35 we slipped Craobh and the advewnture began.
Cutting inside the McCormack Isles to get a bit of tide we were disappointed to find that in fact we had tide against us – a funny bit of water, that. Wind was pretty much on the nose all the way to Ardminish Bay, rising from 2kts to about 15 at times.This was to be the first of a lot of motoring over the next couple of weeks!
We picked up a mooring in Ardminish Bay, Gigha, a bit after midnight and celebrated the first passage with a wee dram of Nights Watch.