BLUEMOMENT

Sounds very reasonable, though the Marine Navigator app with the VisitMyHarbour charts comes in at a similar cost. The Antares charts work unaltered in Marine Navigator and just seamlessly appear as further zoom level where available.

Ooh, yes, definitely Dunstaffnage. Still remember with embarrassment having newly bought Allegro there trying to reverse her out of one of the shallow berths that are on the left hand side just as you come down onto the pontoon. Ended up, due to a combination of propwash and tide, pinned port side t...

I started out in a Corribee too. This was in Plymouth, but I kept her on a cheap (but sheltered) mooring. She stayed there all year round, so there were no haulout / yard costs over the winter. She was bilge keeled, and I just dried out on a beach each spring to antifoul. This really did keep the an...

We've anchored off the pier, which was ok, but not masses of space as has been said. A friend of mine, who writes the scottishanchorages website, recommends the next bay south, Staosnaig, as a much better experience. I plan to give it a go next time we visit: http://www.scottishanchorages.co.uk/#/sc...

I Think I'm going to do the day skipper at my local college. I'm not sure whether it covers both the practical and theory subjects though. The dayskipper courses done as evening classes are "dayskipper theory", and finish with an exam which gives you a theory certificate. Dayskipper pract...

If you're in a hurry / on a budget, don't worry about the theory course at all. To do the practical course you don't have to have done a theory course, just be able to demonstrate that you have that knowledge. And the knowledge can be learnt easily enough from one of the excellent Day Skipper Theory...

I use depth under the keel - with a 1.7m fin keel on the East coast I need to work to small depths at times and don't want to be doing arithmetic. That sounds right, calculating height of tide or anchor chain scope should be a more relaxed affair. Well, yes, but when you're wanting to know whether ...

Depth under the sounder, no offset applied. I know (from experience!) that we go aground at about 0.9m on the sounder. We draw 1.2m - for any other use of the sounder (how much anchor chain to put out, for example) I tend to assume I'm seeing water depth and ignore the 0.3m error as being insignific...

I ruthlessly cast my Dad adrift in the dinghy between Scarba and Luing to get some pics of Allegro under sail. http://lh6.ggpht.com/foxespictures/SH5Tw5IoRcI/AAAAAAAAD3g/ng4Nx42P3MY/s400/DSC02664.JPG Which worked very well until the Corrievreckan tripper boat roared up to rescue him, assuming that I...

Thanks very much for all the comments, particularly the sources of cheap charts. I'm reassured that we'll manage with not much more than we've already got, so hopefully I'll be able to report back a little later in the summer. That is, unless the weather's as foul as last summer when our two week su...

Hi If the weather's kind we may head up beyond Ardnamurchan this summer, provided, that is, the trip doesn't promise to be too expensive in new charts! We'd hope to visit the Small Isles along with the mainland and Skye coast facing them. Its possible but less likely that we'd go beyond Kyle up into...

Hi Just wondering if anyone had practical experience of the requirements for documentation etc when sailing to Southern Ireland? We went across to N Ireland a couple of years ago but I was wary of the border as we had (and still have) a marked lack of the sort of documentation I believe you're suppo...

Its actually suprisingly simple to add pictures of charts to google earth. Save the photographed chart on the computer. Choose Add... Image overlay... in google earth. Browse... to your photo, which then appears on the earth image. You can drag the corners around to resize it until it matches what's...

Love the dophin shots!

As a footnote, we've also anchored in the bay further west (56deg22'55"N, 5deg33'57"W), just east of Eilean Orasaig, in about 5m, seemed fairly deep right up to the (rocky) sides. Shingle beach. Handy for the track to the tearoom!

Cheers
Patrick

BTW - assuming that you're at home, and online, and your charts are on the boat when you read Shard's post. What do you use to have a look at the area which he's describing? I've photographed my charts and added them as overlays to Google Earth, which works very well for panning around them, measur...