2025 20th April, Day 22 To Kyle of Lochalsh & Oskaig Bay, Raasay

Its not so cold today and quite pleasant in the afternoon with no wind and warm when the sun is out, but not enough to clear yesterdays snow from the higher peaks. 

A pleasant sail from the anchorage past Skye Bridge after which the tide and wind messed me about a bit, with tide due to be westbound and the wind offshore I rigged fenders and mooring lines before I left on the starboard side so I would be pointing into the current with the wind neutral fore and aft but pushing me off (a pain) but when I went under Skye Bridge the tide was still going east and the wind veered and increased to for F4 - 5. There was no way I was going to come alongside down wind and down tide as I would not be able to stop the boat so everything had to be changed over and I was along side at 09:20. 

Heading to Skye Bridge,

It turned out that the tide was well adrift as it was still east bound when I left 3 or 4 hours after it should have been against.

Two loads of shopping, fortunately the big co-op is very close albeit up a lot of steps, then a much needed shower and I was off again.

There is going to be a lot of chicken on the menu in the next couple of days as all of the chicken was on relatively short use by dates but it will be Beef Bourguignon tonight as the button mushrooms are even more perishable.

Plenty of snow on the mountain tops from last night.

Raasay's old harbour.

Old quarry workings by the old harbour.

Initially I was sailing but a couple of miles out and as forecast the wind dropped to 3 - 5 knots so on went the engine for a couple of hours to get to Oskaig Bay on Raasay. The forecast is for southerly winds tomorrow so hopefully I can make some progress up the sound of Raasay ending up at Loch Gairloch or perhaps Loch Ewe. From there it is one fairly long days sailing to be positioned to round Cape Wrath the next day if conditions permit.

The anchorage at Oskaig Bay.

Just over 20 miles in five and a half hours excluding the stop.

Click here for Loch Kerry.

2021 Round GB Day 34. Shieldaig to Raasay.

I sailed up the "Inner Sound" (east of Raasay) last year and the AUTEC submarine / underwater weapons systems range along there was likely to be active so I decided to take the slightly longer route south west of Rona and Raasay.

Early morning in Loch Shieldaig.

Leaving in a dead calm with the wake (some created by the
dinghy I was towing) reaching to each side of the Loch.

Approaching the outer Loch.

Moving into the outer loch, the shore is very steep too, here
I was in 134 metres of water (just visible on the instrument on
the right) and that continues to well less than 100 yards of the shore.

The water around Raasay and Rona is incredibly deep close to
shore, just north of Rona my echo sounder could not find the
bottom which the chart says is 265 metres down.

It was a day of fluky, generally light winds and when coming down the sound it took me 4 hours to cover just under 10 miles with no significant current and 6.5 hours to cover the 30 miles to Churchton Bay at the south end of Raasay. 

Approaching Rona moving from 250 metres of water to 50 or so.

Beating down the Sound of Rassay.

I chose to anchor south of the small harbour to avoid disturbance from the ferry and anchored in front of Raasay House, now a hotel but a private house when Boswell & Johnson visited in 1773.

Churchton Bay, Raasay. Raasay House on the left.

The Isle of Skye from the anchorage.

Slide show of all my pictures from Shieldaig to Raasay, page through by clicking the arrows or click in the centre of the pic to view from Flickr in a new window or full screen:

  Click here for day 35, Rassay to Loch Carron.