Port Ellen

Had an early wake up at 04:30 to ensure we made the tide gate through the sound between Islay and Jura.  We were surprised that the anchor was holding so well for the few days we were off Bunessan but when we hauled it up we could see why, we had hooked a wharp or cable of some sort.  Put a line round it, unhooked the anchor and slipped the line with ease.  Quite a struggle against the wind to motor out of the loch but once clear, we could lay a starboard tack past the tip of Mull and on the outside of Iona.  We were quickly up to our favourite 7+ boat speed, touching 8 at times with a good force 4 to 5.  Negotiated various rocks as is normal round these parts (thank goodness for the Garmin) and made our way to the north east end of Colonsay.  We had a quite close encounter with what we thought were 2 basking sharks.  There were 2 fins slowly going round in circles a few feet from the boat.  

We approached the Sound of Islay with just over an hour of favourable tide through the sound.  This is rather important as the tide stream can run up to 5 knots in the sound and you wouldn't want to plug against that.  So to ensure we made it through the 11 miles before the tide changed and sucked us back into the sound, we started the engine to supplement the sails ensuring we had a boat speed of about 7 knots.  So we had a wonderful squirt through the sound passing distilleries at up to 11 knots over the ground (sorry Colin, couldn't stop).  Spat out of the end, cut the engine and sailed onto Port Ellen on the south of Islay after missing a significant amount of Islands and rocks.  We had a struggle to get into Port Ellen as the wind had piped up to F6 on the nose so motored tacked into the poorly defined harbour.  Moored up to the almost self service marina.

Electricity and water are free with the mooring but the 2 showers are part of a local guest house and in demand from the many yachts so we went without again for another night.

Sailed in the morning, leaving the harbour and distillery (sorry Colin) behind.