Loch Aline to Eriska

[Kyle]For all you Monty Python fans: Remember "our quest is at an end!"?


Yep, you’re seeing it right, that’s it!

The Castle Aaagghhh from the movie is actually the real life Castle Stalker. It lies just north of the village of Port Appin, which is just one loch north of our planed overwintering spot in Dunstaffnage. Dunstaffnage is the first place since we left Portsmouth, Virginia where we will haul out and actually leave the boat for a while, ending 18 months and 9,317 miles of continuous cruising (and still not hauled out yet). This is why the quote from the clip is so apt.


Clip from the Holy Grail, including the "our quest is at an end" scene

We’re not quite finished yet, though, so stay tuned.

Castle Stalker is special to me for another reason. When Maryanne and I first met, she was just finishing up her degree at the University of St. Andrews. Then as I do now, I would work for a few days and then fly out to Scotland to see her on my days off. Maryanne would usually plan some sort of mini tour of a different part of the country so that I could see more than just St. Andrews. On one of these trips, we drove out to Glen Coe and then to Oban. I usually did the driving (I like driving over here). On the day we went to Oban, she really, really wanted to drive, but I talked her out of it. On the road there, we came around a corner and there it was, the instantly recognizable Castle Aaahhh. Being on the right side of the car, I instinctively started yelling, “Pull over! Pull over!” She looked at me and responded, “You’re driving!” Right! Now I understand why she wanted to drive. She had planned the surprise all along.

Anyway, well before that, we left Kinlochaline. The forecast had been for 15 knot winds out of the southeast but when we left there was nuttin’. The loch was a big upside down sky ringed by upside down trees. We were just about at the narrow entrance when I noticed another Gemini. We headed over to see the name. Maryanne put a card saying hello in a baggie and prepared to leave it on deck. As we approached, an Englishman came out and introduced himself as John. He and his wife, Victoria were from Nottingham but kept their boat, Catflap, in Oban. He was very friendly and offered us lots of advice on the Oban area.

We continued on. As it was still a nice day, we decided to take the long way and sail around the south side of Kerrera, up the beautiful Sound of Kerrera and past Oban on the way to our next anchorage. What a moment that was for me. Oban is the first place we have sailed on this side of the Atlantic where I have been before, on the aforementioned trip. It is a trick of memory that it is possible to go directly back to a particular memory and skip all of the intervening moments. It was easy to remember looking at the harbor so many years ago and thinking how pretty it was. Now, here we were, coming up the channel and passing by the city in the boat we sailed here ourselves. In fact, between Footprint and our previous boat, Prydwen, we have managed to cover the entire distance between Cleveland, Ohio and Oban on the water. It was from Cleveland that I first flew to meet Maryanne. Eventually, she moved there with me to live on yet another boat. A circle had been completed.
View of Oban town with the Folly atop the hill

This seaplane flies between Oban and Glasgow over some stunning scenery - what a way to go!

I have to go to stinkin’ work soon. I actually managed to wheedle one more day out of them so we decided not to head to Dunstaffnage just yet. It was forecast to be very stormy overnight so we found a protected spot behind Eriska Island in nearby Loch Creran. Once we were up there, it was only another mile or so to Castle Stalker. Even though we will see it next year on the way to the Caledonian Canal, I couldn’t resist, particularly with ‘our quest being at an end’ and all. (I mean, of course, just this particular run of cruising. We intend to keep seeing this world in this wonderful way as long as we are able.)

Once we got to our anchorage, we found it fairly full of moorings. There was a very small patch that had the right depth and was close enough to the island to offer protection. Our first attempt was completely unsuccessful. Just the backward pressure of the building wind with the engine out of gear had us moving at a good clip. It was as if we had just thrown out the chain with no anchor on the end. Our second attempt was better. I ran the engine up to 2800rpm and we held fast. I was a little nervous about the bottom from the previous attempt so I ran it up to 3000rpm and we started skipping backwards. Damn! It started raining really awful, heavy, cold rain. We were desperately impatient to get the anchoring over with and get into the warm. The third attempt was like the second. We briefly considered picking up somebody’s mooring but I didn’t like the idea of having someone come back and shoo us off in the middle of the storm. The radio was starting to bristle with Coast Guard warnings of ‘Imminent Gale, Force 8”. Yeesh! Also, you never know what the quality of the underwater part of a mooring is or what sort of boat it is intended to hold. We made a miserable fourth try and finally held with full reverse. As the storm built through the night, I kept worrying about the holding and popping out to see that we hadn’t moved. I didn’t get much sleep.