After anchoring in Loch Drambuie, which according to Google maps is Droma Buidhe, no where near as nice sounding name.  it was time to start heading south, we want to explore more of Ireland this year and we had friends and family to see. There was no wind, so we motored all the way. I'm afraid that we have motored far more that we wanted to while we explored Scotland. There are several reasons for this.

1. The tides in the area we were cruising can be quite fierce so we choose times where the wind was light so that we were only dealing with the tide and not the wind and the tide.
2. The topography of the area means that the wind gets funnelled, so when there is a reasonable amount of wind it can soon gets whipped up into stronger winds which can be harder to sail
3. Again because of the topography of the area, the wind gets funnelled onto your nose that means either tacking or motoring. Beverley and I don't mind tacking, but you have to be aware that this can cause you to miss tidal gates, so the motor goes on

This time we motored down to Oban Transit Marina, which is a short stay marina only, but it has a heated floor in the shower area and really good access to the town. As there was no wind, I got us into dock and I did a really good job. Beverley on the other hand messed up and she bent the boat hook.

We didn't stay long in the Marina, but I did stay long enough to start a new business as a freelancer, so I rustled up some clients from people that I had done work for before and had a few drinks.

Soon we were motoring again, but eventually we did get enough wind to get the genoa out. I still love the times that we sail, and although we were motor sailing it was so great to get the sail up.

We decided to try another anchorage and this time we anchored just North of Crinan in a lock called Loch Craignish, just off Goat Island. It was a beautiful spot and our anchoring went well. Beverley was still on the helm, so that is a challenge that I still need to do. We had learnt from our previous anchorage and the one thing we had learnt, was find an anchorage that you can get off the boat. We had achieved this in that there was several islands nearby, but we need to be poor picky about what we look for in an anchorage in that.

1. We want to be able to get off Salty Lass, when we are at anchor, so that means that you need a shore where you can get onto the land

We had a beach right next to us, but it was mainly rocks so we had to be very careful as we went ashore. Once on the shore there was no-where to go really. There was a patch of grass that we could walk through, but it went all of 20 yards and we were on the other side of the island, walking around the island was not an option as the shore was too steep, but we did get to use out dinghy anchor for the first time.

Another place we tried, which had a jetty and everything was a private island, so no good there, while the last was a road, that looked so unappealing that we left it, but we did get Salty Sausage out, so a better place to anchor. We also saw some large fish farms in which we could see some fairly large salmon leaping.

While we were at anchor we took the opportunity to do a few jobs, so Beverley cleaned the rudder and she changed the bulb in the front light to be an LED light as that is a better light than our current incandescent light.

I on the other hand did lots of thinking and wrote out six pages for some work that I was doing. I have to say that the view out the office window was fantastic. It had been so peaceful and had been a great break.

That night the wind rose and all of a sudden the island that we were anchored by was a lee shore, then the anchor alarm went off and all of a sudden it was action stations. So we got the anchor up as soon as possible. As I lifted the anchor it was absolutely covered in weed, so I think that this was the primary cause of the drag. We were not far from the Crinan canal so we went there. Once we were through the first sea lock we just moored for the night in the basin.