Position: Arisaig, 56º 53.932' N 005º 57.334' W
Weather: A dry day with sunny intervals in the afternoon, but strong winds.
Distance travelled: 58 nautical miles (new record for this trip).

Saturday 3rd September

Today with hopes high, we set off after most of the crew decided to go for a swim (it was a tad chilly!!! especially as we all jumped in from the top of the deck, seven in total, like diving gannets). This helped wake a certain young captain who spent the night under the stars and didn’t really sleep very well.

Then we were off, nuzzling Rona and Raasay and heading south towards the Skye bridge, which we fitted under – only just! Hoping to see lots of large cetaceans, we were surveying the horizon – was there anybody out there? Well yes, we did see several porpoise groups to start with, including about twenty in one hour (mostly spotted by Veronica. There were also loads of seals to be seen basking in the sunshine on the rocks.

Struggling through the rapids (ok the current) we continued down the Sound of Sleat. With lessons learnt from yesterday about the consequences of not wearing oilskins, Eilidh and Chris stepped up to the challenge of taking on the waves. Well at least they should have learnt the lesson, as they didn’t wear any oilskins. With spray literally reaching head height, they were soaked through in minutes. After a slight wardrobe changed, they were back to fight another day. Juliet didn’t have quite as much reckless enthusiasm, and dragged us back inside – no more spotting today chaps. As we retreated to the stern of the boat, Marcus was found to be a very good wave barrier.

With us all hiding from the spray, we were slightly distracted but sharp eyed Iris spotted something, it was a large grey fin, not a basking shark but something large and most definitely close. Our resident ranger also spotted the beast and thought it may be a bottlenose dolphin but she wasn’t convinced. Even with Martin in the crow’s nest and all other eyes straight out to sea, we still couldn’t follow the crafty cetacean – they really are as intelligent as the media makes out. After giving up the chase, it was back to our southward course through wind and waves, which were getting bigger all the while.

Finally we found our way through the multicoloured obstacle course of the Sound of Arisaig (some excellent manoeuvring by Veronica). Marcus our james bond in a motor boat then went to shore for some much needed supplies. Now to eat those supplies… it’s dinner time.

Quick log by Eilidh and Chris