Jean Says: We had to tear ourselves away from Tobermory. We'd grown very fond of it and with it being our second visit, had become very familiar with all the best places to go for coffee cake. Today, we were only going back to Oban to collect our post, but the sailing was relaxed and gentle, so we stayed out all day, and ended up staying in Oban again. It's springs, so we did a bit of 'punching the tide', to get down the Sound of Mull and squeeze ourselves through the Southern neck of it. The tide was also squeezing itself through and produced one of the most interesting overfall effects that we've seen. It looked like the water was boiling furiously, but with white foaming crests instead of steam. We've got a powerful engine and always knew that we could push our way through in the end, but even so we were reduced to doing only one and a half knots for a short while. At least we didn't start going backwards, but then we did like Tobermory.
We've now adopted a guilty until proved innocent stance with any other boats that come within a three mile radius. We've also brushed off the foghorn, and are thinking of buying a megaphone. You just can't be too careful.
We're not sure if our depth gauge is working properly. Ninety nine percent of the time, it's absolutely fine, but then all of a sudden, the gauge will read between 2 meters and nought meters under the keel for a few minutes. It's happened a few times and freaks me out a bit, even though I know that we are in a deep water area. We have been told though that submarines like to closely track yachts, so this could explain it. We'll have to consult our submariner friend Mike about this! If we have the same problem in Loch Ness, I think I'll be calling the RAF to winch me off as quickly as possible.

Here's a photo of the overfalls, although they were more dramatic in the flesh.
Nice lighthouse as well!





Luckily we chanced upon Elton John playing at Oban Marina last night