As I write this, we are sitting on a mooring just off the shore of Holy Island, a small island on the east coast of the Isle of Arran. The sun is just dropping below the Island's hills, which are capped
in white clouds, and the sea is turning glassy and silver, disturbed only by gannets
plummeting into the water fishing for their supper, and the occasional
appearance of a seal's head bobbing contentedly above the surface. We've just
eaten fresh lobster and crab, purchased off a passing fishing boat two hours
ago and skilfully cooked by Willik, with freshly made mayonnaise. A perfect way
to finish off a pretty good day!
It was quite strange last night to go to sleep and know we would not have to stumble up after 2 hours for a night watch. We can`t remember when we did this before - was it in a previous life? As a consequence we all slept for around 12 hours ("not so much a sleep as a short course in death" - one of the more repeatable quotes from Paul) and had a very slow start, leaving our mooring around lunchtime and heading down towards Arran in a freshening wind.
For once the wind was NOT on the nose - BLISS - and the sun was out, and consequently we had a glorious sail down to Arran. We even managed to get Frangi's newly repaired mainsail to set much better, and she was steaming along at 7 knots in 15 knots of wind. Although we didn't need to, we had some tacking practice: Honest yer `onour, we didn't notice that Claudia was in the heads. The creative water fighting continued, as Richard worked out that the hatch from the cockpit into the aft heads was immediately over the heads itself - as Jane subsequently found out!
As we approached Arran and got into the lee of the island, we tried out the fishing gear for the first time - good news that we caught a fish almost immediately; bad news that it was too heavy for the puny line and all the kit disappeared along with the fish. Back to the drawing board on that one - must get this right for our journey northwards.
We found a good mooring in the lee of Holy Island around mid-afternoon, and
have been sitting here in the peace and beauty of these stunning surroundings,
intermittently admiring the view, trying out David`s new binoculars, watching
the Waverley (the last of the Clyde paddle steamers, we are told) come into the
bay, reading ,sleeping and, of course, in the case of Claudia, who had more
energy than usual (yikes), playing..
After she`d disappeared head first into the fridge (yes, we have the pictures to prove it), Paul decided to calm her down by indulging her wish to climb the 70ft mast (or Claudia indulged Paul´s fantasies about tying up women - not sure which way round this was!) and hoisted her up to the top where she showed us her gymnastic skills as well as checking out the mast head equipment and taking some fabulous photos of Frangi from above.
Richard nearly prompted us to try out our VHF skills and call out the rescue services, as we stumbled coughing from noxious fumes emitting from the heads - I think he was trying to get revenge on Willik for an obscenely lucky backgammon performance.
Time to sign off as Head Chef Paul is about to serve up another fine mess. Hasta manana.
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