We were in the anchorage off Lingay island, but the wind was at 22knots which is beaufort 5 but we also had gust at 6. The islands around the anchorage gave some protection so that the sea state was mitigated but it was still a bit swelly hear high tide when one of the islands disappeared. The predictions that we were seeing were all over the place with predictions of mild weather all the way up to storms, so we decided to pick up the anchor and travel down to Castle bay.

While Beverley was pulling up the anchor she had a really hard time with the electric windlass with it just stopping durring the lift. This meant that she had to lift it by hand, a task complicated by the fast that with the winds that we were experiencing it was difficult for me to keep the boat staedy and above the anchor. I did manage it but it was difficult.

I was on the helm, so I took us down the side of Barra in fairly swelly conditions. In conditions of that sort, then we have to hand steer because we can see the waves and you have to steer the boat so that you take the waves at an angle.

When we were tied up on the pontoon at Castle Bay, we messed about with the anchor and looked at all the electrics. The relay was delivering the correct voltages, but either there was a corroded wire inside the windlass or the gears were grinding together.

Beverley took me through the process of dropping the anchor and lifting the anchor so that I knew what to do. Then of course I had to do it. It was a new skill to me, so it was good to learn that I could do it.

After our training we had to go out and put our new found skills to the test so we dropped the hook at Vatersay island. Using the manual controls were alright and in future this is probably the way we will do it as it uses so little power.

Once we were anchored up we flew the drone and I went for a walk over to the atlantic side of the island and its beach. Both beaches are just stunning, the sun was shinning and it was just beautiful. It was a little bit of paradise.

I insisted that I raised the anchor so that I could get to see what was happening and sometimes I could get the windlass to work and sometimes it would just cease up which led me to believe the it is actually the gear oil rather than a fault in the wiring, so we returned to castle bay just so that I could buy some gear oil.

As we left castle bay we saw a good sized pod of dolphins which was just fantastic.