BLUEMOMENT

Didn't see a single soul between Craobh and Craighouse this weekend - understandable since we left in darkness both there and back - but more surprising was that all the time we were on the Paps, we counted only 6 yachts anywhere in sight. With such a stunning day and lovely winds, that seemed incredibly quiet, even for the uncongested west coast. Were we just lucky?

Most magical moment of many was as we approached Craighouse at the very start of morning light, and 4 dolphins appeared alongside to keep us company, swimming and jumping alongside for ten minutes or so. On a bitterly cold night it was a lovely way to start the day. Unfortunately our cameras disagreed that it was daylight, and so we have lots of pictures and videos of blackness, with splashing noises and us going "there......no, over there.......wow....." etc etc.

"Practicing" for the SIPR? is that gentlemanly conduct??

Lucky lucky on the dolphins, haven't seen dolphins south of Skye yet.

Quiet/busy ?? I reckon its busy already at dunstaffnage/sound of mull. We went for a day sail around lismore yesterday. Saw Silkie leaving in convoy, and 5/6 boats as we sailed around lismore. It seems to me that boats that we hardly ever saw used last year are being used regularly, and a few "new" boats in the marina. Dunstaffnage certainly seemed busier yesterday with lots of comings and goings. Pity the frog is still not open

Steve

stevepick wrote:"Practicing" for the SIPR? is that gentlemanly conduct??

No, just a pure co-incidence that we happened to take a wee saunter round the Paps 2 weeks before the race......

Having said that, I'm delighted I won't be doing that run - what a horrible route! How the top runners manage to run at all on the marshy ground, scree, more scree, horribly steep paths etc etc I'll never know.

Blue Chip was tied up to the pontoon when we got back, and looked to be staying the night as we left. That's some mean looking speed machine.... I think we'll aim for the tortoise approach again this year. The view from the top of Pap #2 was fabulous - you could see pretty much the whole racecourse from there, certainly all the peaks and most of the sea passages up to the Mull of Kintyre. I was contemplating one of those cameras that stitches together a panorama view last week. Wish I'd gone for it, would have been a lovely shot.

MrMcP wrote:I was contemplating one of those cameras that stitches together a panorama view last week. Wish I'd gone for it, would have been a lovely shot.

You don't need a camera to do that.

"Windows Live Photo Gallery" stitches panoramas for you. It's free. All you have to do is take some overlapping shots, select them and hit the panorama button.

If you don't want Microsoft Software there are other free solutions.

Obviously you could use photoshop but you'd have to pay for that.

Don't know about crowded, but we were the fourth boat to drop anchor at Camas Mhor-Fhir on Lunga on Saturday. Lovely sunny weather for the most, good sailing, but bloody cold.