2025 11th April, Day 13 to Tobermory.

I was awake early after an early night to find a heavy mist, I suspected this was only in Loch Aline so decided to move off to get at least the first hour or two against a relatively slack tide. At 06:30 I could see both banks of the Loch, 5 minutes later after I had got the anchor up, everything had disappeared with the visibility perhaps 20 yards.

I was tempted to put the anchor back down but decided not to and gingerly went down the Loch at a walking pace, fortunately my modern doppler radar is particularly good close in with essentially no minimum range and at 100 meters (or less) will show just about everything.

With two independent GPS's running, one the 9" plotter, the other an iPad with raster charts including a very accurate Antares chart of the entrance (the lap top with raster and a different vector charting system was not going to be any use as it is on the chart table). As a bonus the plotter has multiple tracks from previous visits and the iPad had my track in, that was my preferred one as it was clear of lobster pots when I came in.

About 150 yards from where I anchored, nothing visible. The
radar is showing 3 other anchored boats (large blobs), the
small red blob is the pole on Sgeirean nan Ron (a short reef).

Approaching the loch entrance, the red blob ahead of me is
the port lateral buoy, about 150 yards away, I saw it at 50 as
the fog lifted. With a reasonably amount of tide I could be
sure of not running aground if I stayed within the previous tracks.
The red line on a similar track is the track of a large motor
yacht that was a mile or so ahead of me and classified as
dangerous by the AIS system.

The AIS contact at the top of the screen "Lara of Chichester"
is, as I write, one berth down from me at Tobermory. She had
left her AIS on whilst parked and arrived there in the early evening.

My inbound (right at the bottom) and outbound
tracks, the channel is about 75 yards wide.

The ferry on her berth, about 75 yards away with the fog
lifting further.

The fog stayed patchy until I was well north of Ruba Aird Scisg and the fish farm north of there, about 5 miles, when is suddenly cleared but was still there behind me. With a freshening wind I was able to sail for about an hour , not making a great deal of progress against the tide.

Whilst still in the fog I was rather disconcerted to find a large ferry coming up behind me making 14 knots over the ground, about 15 over the ground. I was perfectly safe as I was using GPS and radar to keep well to the right of the main channel and a couple of hundred off shore, was broadcasting my presence on AIS and could see hers. She past me under 250 meters away (by AIS and Radar) and only just visible. How she would have avoided anything not visible on radar, admittedly higher resolution and more sensitive than mine, I don't know.

14 miles in 4 hours.

As previously forecast some bad weather is coming and it is looking worse every day. I could be here until Tuesday or Wednesday 😞and it is unlikely I will be able to head out via Coll as wind is likely to be making the anchorages untenable for some time. Direct to Barra or via the Small Islands may be an option but the ECMWF and UKMO violently disagree on the weather from Tuesday.

Click here for time in Tobermory.