Murlough Bay

[Kyle]The morning was rainy and foggy. We pulled up the anchor and left under sail for the trip north. The winds were light and variable until we left the protection of the bay, then it stabilized at a perfect broad reach and we just flew with the current up the coast. The rain stopped and the clouds became a lighter shade of gray as we sailed past green cliffs dotted with sheep and tiny villages clinging to the rock at the shore.

We sailed past Torr Head, where we had driven a few days earlier. I must say, I think it’s even prettier from the sea, except at sea, you can’t climb higher for a longer view.

As we rounded Torr Head, the current increased to 6 knots. Our course changed 30 degrees but we had to turn 90 degrees to compensate for it. There was somebody looking at us from the lookout and I wondered what it must have looked like to them; a boat rounds the point and then makes a suicidal turn straight at the rocks but then continues on sideways.

Once around Torr Head, which is a fairly sharp point, the fast current tore off into various eddies. There were flat spots where the boat was slewed from side to side, places where hundreds of tiny wavelets seemed to be coming from every direction and other places where the waves were organized into short, steep breakers. Footprint felt like a car that had accidentally left the road and was bouncing through the landscaping on the median. The current was all over the place and it was hard to steer a straight line.

Our anchorage was approaching fast. It appeared to be no more than a slight dent in the coast. From where we were, I could not see how we would be protected at all. It was also surrounded by rocks. I decided to scrap my original plan of sailing into the anchorage and started the motor. The combination of the slight bend in the coastline, which diffused the swell, and the rocks on one side actually made the anchorage relatively calm. All that was left was a long, slow swell that was rather pleasant. The shore was steep to, though and very small, with only enough room for one boat. We inched our way up through the rocks as close to the tiny beach as our anchor rode would allow and dropped the anchor in 3 meters of water onto hard sand and held fast. We had managed, as in Jost Van Dyke, to lay our anchor and chain right across a nice bare patch of sand. The water was so clear, we could see our chain as it stretched over the ripples in the sand and the grooves the links made as we swung back and forth. I instinctively wanted to dive in but reminded myself that the water only looks warm.



Views from the Anchorage, not bad at all
What a fantastic anchorage. Like Jost Van Dyke (Apr. 2009), we were the lone boat in an anchorage ringed by high cliffs. All we could see on one side was a wall of green. This ended to the northwest at Fair Head, a giant mesa that looks as if it were pulled right out of the Arizona desert and sprinkled with green. Beyond it lay Rathlin Island, tipped with a powerful lighthouse. To the northeast, we could see the hills of Scotland. We were anchored about a boat length from where the swell turns into surf so we also had the sound of the waves crashing ashore in the background.

The weather cleared up completely (huh?). We spent the rest of the day out in the cockpit reading to each other and taking in the magnificent views. At night, the beam of the light on Rathlin Island would flash four times every 20 seconds and leave window shaped patches of light on the walls. Yep, it’s a pretty cool anchorage.