We had been at anchor for a few days, and the arc that we had drawn with the track on our chart plotter was pretty impressive. Really thick as we had swung with the wind blowing at 38knots, thus marking an arc far away from the anchor, but we had also swung in lighter winds, which made an arc nearer the anchor. The anchor alarm, had gone off a couple of times in the larger gusts but as soon as the gust had died down, the chain dropped and we went back to the mean position on the arc. When your anchor alarm goes off, you really do need to judge what is causing it. Are you experiencing a huge gust? Did you put the anchor alarm on at one side of the arc and you are at the other now? Just remember that you do have time to judge your situation and then react.

We had been looking at the weather and we had a series of storms coming in from the West, so many in fact that our plans were in shreds. Our plan had been to go further North and discover pastures new, but with the storm after storm coming that would be hitting that area, we decided to tear our plans up and go south into the protected waters, behind Jura and just look for more anchorages and places that we had not been before.

So once we had got Salty Lass ready to sail, we were on our way, sailing with just the Genoa. It was great to be out sailing, Beverley did have a lot of fun lifting the anchor, because she pulled the tripping line up over the bow pulpit. The last section of tripping line came in wrapped around the chain, but as the chain was being pulled in, the line pulled the chain off the gypsy and dropped the anchor. Fortunately the chain caught on the gypsy again so Beverley untangled the chain and the tripping line before she pulled in the anchor with much more success.

While we were sailing, one of the manoeuvres that we pulled off was lifting the main, while we were tacking. We attempted this manoeuvre because I only wanted to pull the main up to the third reef. If I wanted more sail then I would of headed into wind like normal. I also could of gybed the boat, but we had already tried that manoeuvre with little success, plus we were under engine at the time, while this time we were sailing, so I did a long tack to give Beverley more time. Even with giving her as much time as I could, she certainly needed to be on the top of her game, because there was a lot to do in very little time. Tacking the boat, lifting the main, setting the main, sorting out the reefing lines and sailing all at the same time. I on the helm had a lot easier time, with a lot less exercise. Once Beverley had pulled up the sail, I tacked right back, so that we were on the same tack as before.

Once we had completed our sail, and was in at Oban. I cleaned off Lock Aline mud