An early start was needed to get the benefit of a fair tide, so we set off at 6.15 in the glowing morning light (see photos). The air had become quite a bit chillier this morning, so we were back to wearing the thermals again. The day was going to be fairly uneventful apart from the chance to sail properly on a beam reach, at a decent pace, in the direction we wanted.
The little Minch has got to be one of the emptiest seas that you are ever likely to sail in around the British Coastline. While we've been in it, there has been no-one around except a very occasional fishing boat in the distance. It would be almost impossible to crash into anyone in The Little Minch even if you wanted to. The very last thing anyone would expect is a potential collision situation because, in fact The Little Minch is not little, it's a massive great piece of water and yesterday you could see for miles. So we were surprised to see that there was another yacht out and about, especially in the early hours of the morning and heading across our heading. We were sailing, and we could see that the other boat was motoring, so we were naturally expecting that if we did close on each other, the other boat would make their intentions clear in good time, and keep out of our way while we continued on our course.
It became clear that we were actually on collision course, and the other boat didn't appear to be taking any avoiding action. I could see by this time that the boat was bearing a Danish flag, and there was one helmswoman on deck. We shouted to her to attract her attention in case she hadn't seen us, and she waved back in a jolly fashion, but still didn't change course.
She was so close now that we could see the smile on her face, as well as the fact that her boat was a Halberg Rassey 54, a much bigger one than Bella Rosa. Perhaps she was coming over to compare notes? Time was running out fast, and it suddenly dawned on us that we might have come across an escaped lunatic, who'd stolen a boat and was out to get anyone else within striking distance. I checked to see if she had machine guns trained on us.
With this thought it mind, we had no choice but to bear away 90 degrees and literally just missed being carved up by the still smiling Danish woman.
There's not much you can do after a situation like that but hurl abuse after the offending person. They sail off into the sunset and can get away with murder. While Bob was enquiring at full volume why she was in charge of a boat at all (although not using exactly those words!), I'd managed to log that the boat was called Cecilia. The woman continued to smile inanely in our direction, so Bob grabbed the radio and called her up. She said she was sorry several times, and promised to uphold Bob's polite suggestion that she learn the rules in future to avoid nearly killing anyone else. I still can't believe it happened.
Well, after that, we carried on to Loch Torridon, where we were going to leave our boat on a mooring buoy owned by the hotel and stay for a night. When we got there, it turned out that the mooring buoy didn't exist, so we had to move on. We didn't want another night at anchor. We'd been on the boat without getting off for nearly three days by now, so had to find somewhere we could leave it safely and securely. We carried on to Plockton to find a more reliable visitor buoy, which is where we spent the night. We had a fabulous meal in the Plockton Hotel and have woken up to a fab day. We'll stay here today and do some walking. There's a band called the Budapest Cafe Orchestra performing locally tonight so although they're not exactly playing Scottish folk music it could be fun!
The Outer Hebrides a 6.00 yesterday morning. The squalls have died down.
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