We planned to leave Stornoway at about half past ten, having spent two nights there. Because we’d done so much of our recent passages under motor, we had to fill up the tank with diesel, which involved taking the boat round to a separate fuel berth on the end of one of the piers. Another yacht was leaving about the same time and also wanted to pick up fuel, so we decided to wait until they had been served. Unfortunately the harbour staff got distracted and left the other boat on the fuel berth for three-quarters of an hour before finally filling them up and letting us on, with the result that we left a bit later than planned. As it happened, there were no critical tidal gates for that day’s passage, so the delay was not important.
It was another day that started a little misty and ended up sunny. In the mornings, the clouds that form on the top of the hills of the islands seemed to flow downhill and spread out across the sea. Occasionally they got low enough to become mist or fog, but often they just hung there like a blanket, to be dispersed in the afternoons when the sun’s warmth finally got through. On this day the wind was light but not entirely absent; we managed a couple of hours’ sailing before we slowed down to an unacceptable pace mid-afternoon.
To reach Tarbert we went through the Sound of Scalpay, between Harris and the smaller island of Scalpay. A bridge joins the two islands. On the chart it said that there was 20m clearance between the bridge and the water, so I was fairly sure that Goldfinch’s mast would get under. And so it did, but seen from below it looked like the room for error was smaller than it probably was.
Tarbert is a small habitation on South Harris. The ‘isles’ of Lewis and Harris are in fact a single land-mass joined by a narrow isthmus. The smaller, southern part of this is South Harris; North Harris is the bit just to the north of the isthmus, and Lewis is all the rest. Between them they are the third-biggest island in the British Isles, after the mainland of Britain itself and the island of Ireland.
There is a small new marina in Tarbert with room for just a handful of yachts. The people there were very welcoming, and the setting is beautiful, particularly in the exceptionally warm and sunny weather we were experiencing. Right next to the marina is the Isle of Harris Distillery, where they make a particularly appetising gin infused with sugar kelp.
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