Monday 22nd May, 2006
Anchorage: North Channel, Loch Moidart
56° 48’.967 N 005°50’.200W
Distance covered: 8nm

It was a gorgeous day, with sun beating down although the icy arctic wind blowing from the north chills to the bones.

As we needed to refill our water tank and wait for the tide to come in (not wishing to repeat the journey into the bay on low tide where we were watching crabs ducking from the bottom of the boat as we shaved the bottom of the approach inlet), we spent three hours in the morning being educated with another one of Susie’s highly interesting presentations about logging data and acoustics (Susie’s impression of snapping shrimps left us feeling we were sitting on the sea bed).

The crew decided to stay in the boat to wait for the water tank refilled while the volunteers took a walk in the town and had lunch on shore during which, Raihan, the computer geek (but claims to be a ‘people person’) spent half of his lunch time internet surfing. Mike, Sam, Emi and Percy took the opportunity of visiting a traditional English café as a photo shoot opportunity (much to the consternation of the ‘local’ diners) and within minutes had cleared the top floor of all other customers. As we were having lunch upstairs in the café, our captain Duncan and his Marine Ranger, Susie, were walking up and down the street, packing half a dozen packs of crisps and looking like a pair of homies.

At approx 15:00 we finally hit open sea and yet again were forced to endure mountainous waves and an icy north wind as we headed across the Sound of Arisaig to the Island of Shona. In such conditions, Percy and Raihan are known to wilt rapidly and captain Duncan manned the wheel with an evil grin on his face and ropes in his hand ready to once again, lash the afflicted to the mast. But today, Raihan experienced a Damascene day. With captain Duncan’s PC crashed and as dead as a dodo, he spied his opportunity to redeem himself and prove he could add some value to the ship’s complement. Like a cyber warrior he battled wicked seas, damaged operating systems, unhelpful helpdesks and overcame the dreadful sea sickness to finally restore full computer operations. For this he completed his first crossing without being strapped to the mast and ‘beasted’ by the captain.

After we anchored the boat, captain Duncan was crushed and resigned to his bunk to rest while uncle Mike, having no previous cooking experience, bravely took up the role of chief chef preparing a traditional fish/prawn pie for dinner knowing that an experienced cook, Emi, was on his side. This may seem like a simple enough task but after 2 hours preparation an SOS was sent out and Sam and Emi were called on to rescue the situation. As the whisks came out in a desperate operation to rescue the white sauce, all other crew members were banned from the kitchen (what were they trying to hide down there???). While the fish pie was prepared, a team effort endeavored to produce a culinary work of art in the gastronomic delight ‘apple tartar’, which was achieved with no major hiccups.

Sam and Mike, Hong Kong and Cheshire