{"id":6398,"date":"2009-08-04T05:32:59","date_gmt":"2009-08-04T10:32:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/setsail.com\/scotland\/"},"modified":"2009-08-04T05:32:59","modified_gmt":"2009-08-04T10:32:59","slug":"scotland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/setsail.com\/scotland\/","title":{"rendered":"Scotland"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Scotland<\/p>\n

We’ve made the leap from the Orkneys to Scotland. The various guide books and Admiralty Pilots make interesting reading for this territory, but they are definitely not for the faint of heart. Between currents, shallow sea beds, reflected waves, and open ocean swells this is considered one of the most dangerous stretches of water on the planet. Cape Wrath is aptly named.<\/p>\n

Although our brief (just a hundred miles, nine hours) passage is without incident, we can see how this might be challenging. With modest currents (we are just off neaps) and no more than 20 knots of breeze on the nose there are six foot plus (1.8m) close coupled seas.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"Scotland<\/p>\n

We have been pleasantly surprised so far by the Scottish wildlife. A profusion of birds, whales, seals, and porpoise.<\/p>\n

\"Loch<\/p>\n

Loch Laxford offers a variety of anchorages into which you can tuck. With southwesterly winds due to increase to gale force before swinging to the southeast we are happy to be securely at anchor. We’ve seen just one yacht so far, and a few houses.<\/p>\n

\"Loch<\/p>\n

Look carefully along the left edge of the cliffs and you will see black specks – hikers, which gives an idea of the scale of these cliffs. Impressive scenery.<\/p>\n

\"Scotland<\/p>\n

There are a variety of small fishing boats at work. This is a modern mini-trawler.<\/p>\n

\"Scotland<\/p>\n

An older design which looks like she was originally sail powered. Of the two, the latter will be far more efficient in terms of fuel burn and have a softer motion.<\/p>\n

\"Dunvegan-Scotland-4\"<\/p>\n

With the threat of sustained southwesterlies (head winds for us) we have moved down the coast to Dunvegan on the Isle of Skye, the location of the oldest continuously inhabited castle in Scotland. This is the headquarters of Clan MacLead, built as a keep in the 14th century. The grim looking exterior is in keeping with wet and windy weather for which the West Coast of Scotland is infamous.<\/p>\n

\"Dunvegan-Scotland-5\"<\/p>\n

The anchorage is tight, and well protected from the southerly winds. We’ve got four fishing boats as neighbors, and there is public wifi at anchor (but no cell phone or mobile broadband). We are going to hang out for a few days and catch up on writing, some design work, and boat chores. When the rain lets up we’ll go ashore and explore.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We’ve made the leap from the Orkneys to Scotland. The various guide books and Admiralty Pilots make interesting reading for …Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6398","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dashew-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/setsail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6398"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/setsail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/setsail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/setsail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/setsail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6398"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/setsail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6398\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/setsail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6398"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/setsail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6398"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/setsail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6398"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}