2022 St Kilda, Weather bound at Plockton.

Arriving in rain at Plockton on Thursday the forecast was for a possibly blustery, overcast day on Friday with some showers, a nice day on Saturday and a gale arriving on Sunday with intermittent bad weather for up to a week so rather than anchor I took the option of a reduced mooring charge for 7 days (7 for the price of 5) making the charge more reasonable than most, especially as it included use of the dinghy pontoon which otherwise costs £5 more than I have seen anywhere else and in most places it’s free; you can however use the beach that is closer to the hotel etc. but you could be left with a long carry given the tide.  The plan was to take the odd night away and / or do some day sailing as the weather permitted,

On Friday the 6th I took the opportunity of going up to Lochcarron village in the upper loch where, as I found last year, there is an excellent award winning family run shop with the best supplies I have come across in a smallish village, the tiny shop in Plockton, linked to a Tea shop / café, has very little although it does have a small off-licence. 

After a lot of rain waterfalls all-round the area looked impressive
but generally out of photographic range from a moving boat in
poor light. This small one about halfway along upper Loch Carron.

Turning onto the transit to pass through the reef off of Lochcarron,
possibly a central glacial moraine. The transit is the fence line
highlighted on the picture with a red "T" at each end.

Tracks in and out through the reef following the transit backed
up by GPS and the Antares chart on the iPad plus the chart plotter.

One of this years favourite "made dish" (the other is
 my chicken curry that is easier to make but needs
fresh chicken so is only made a day or two after
shopping) - Corned Beef Hash with lots of Garlic
and herbs. I have not been able to get the spicy
meatballs I was using for last years favourite but
this only needs fresh unions and preferably potatoes
 and I think it is nicer.

I had thought to anchor off for the night and perhaps eat at the hotel but the brisk south-westerly wind that had sprung up whilst I was ashore would have made it rather uncomfortable, so I sailed most of the 6 miles back to Plockton for dinner aboard.

The miserable weather meant dreary photos, there are better ones on the post about my visit last year (opens in a new window).

By Friday night the forecast had changed a little with the really bad weather coming in a bit later, probably late Sunday, in the event the strongest winds arrived on Tuesday and there was little or no wind for much of the weekend and contrary to the forecast Sunday, like Saturday, was nice and sunny. On Saturday I managed to get a table at the Plockton Inn for an excellent albeit expensive meal, but I did have King Scallops for the main course, and on Sunday I had fish and chips from the tiny chip shop - good fish, very average chips. 

Slide show of Plockton pictures, best full screen by clicking on the centre of the picture (opens in new window):

Lochcarron slide show from trips on Friday the 6th and Wednesday 11th:

The forecast as of Monday morning shows rain or showers every day through Friday and winds gusting to 30 knots or more every day with the possible exception of Wednesday when they may only reach 25! Experience says this will change if not in strength at least in timing but it looks like I will be stuck here for the rest of the week. The good news is that the wind here is not much more than half that being reported just a few miles away at Portrea.

Click here for weather doom and gloom.