Hidey holes

Whilst at Craighouse on Jura there were dire warnings in the press about a hurricane that was presently on the west coast of America, the tail end of which was expected to hit Scotland possibly at the weekend. We had spent a lovely time with Paul and Mo Fay aboard Ti-Gitu and when the conversation turned to immediate plans, mine were firming up to explore Loch Tarbert on Juras west coast. This dramatic sea loch almost cuts the island in two, four miles long and the last two miles were an intricate pattern of leading marks weaving their way through rock strewn passages and vertical cliffs. There were several anchorages each one being deeper and less exposed than the last, a perfect 'hurricane hole'

An early start on Friday, it's traditionally bad luck to leave on a Friday, however our luck held the weather was drizzly and overcast with a surprising amount of swell.

As we entered the sound of Islay I quickly called Lynne on deck to see her first Minke whale!

All was quiet as we slipped past the distilleries on Islay at 8-9 knots with the tide under us, however on leaving the north entrance the sky tuned black and we were soon in a howling gale with white spume being blown of the wave tops and Dark Tarn heeling under bare poles. We continued under engine as we approached the outer Loch, it didn't look promising, the wind was obviously doing its katabatic thing dropping down off the Paps and screeching across the surface of the Loch.

However as we started to make the first of the transits of leading lines into the middle Loch things calmed down a bit and we were surprised to see another yacht coming out. We continued to tick off transits until finally were in the expanse of the inner Loch. We had passed A, B and C leading markers and had a look at two possible anchorages however they were both still exposed to force 4 winds and were fairly shoal to boot. The gorge like entrance to Cumhann beag beckoned and although we were still early at just past mid tide I persuaded Lynne we should " have a look". Lynne did a great job of calling out the instructions for the devious doglegs of D1,D2 and D3 leading marks and Dark Tarn seemingly heading straight for a cliff was turned at the last minute to maintain course avoiding sunken boulders and shoal patches constantly checking the depth sounder to arrive at the Halfway anchorage and perfect peace.

We dropped anchor in our "Hurricane Hole" and breathed a sigh of relief...........

There are no Admiralty charts beyond the outer Loch so the charlets in the Clyde Cruising Club are invaluable. The leading marks which are small concrete pillars were put in at the request of the estate by 'Blondie' Hasler, The above charlet shows the final part from Cuhann Beag.

The 'Halfway anchorage', we later reset the anchor to move us closer to the right of the pool due to a change in wind direction. The Paps of Jura are visible down the passage to Cuhann Beag.

This photo shows the continuation passage to 'The Hole' which is about 200 metres further on and is as far as you can go, there is no good anchorage there despite the name, the hole is over 20 mts deep.

That night at anchor we sat in the cockpit with our anchor light the only other light besides the moon and listened to the deer baying on shore and fish splashing in the water, we also thought we heard an otter moving through the kelp. Lynne said the only thing missing was King Kong battling a dinosaur as it has very much the feel of a "Lost World"