Inching across the Little Minch

We didn’t hear the howls of the wind outside when we woke up this morning like we had done yesterday, and the forecast had tamed since we’d gone to bed, so we stowed everything away properly and went out to have a look.
Nervous the wind would pick up, we prepped the 7m kite, putting the 15m bar on it, as we thought this was the kite we’d least likely need today. (Typically at the end of the day the wind died to nothing and we could have used the 15m). The bigger the kite, often the longer the bar you need, and the slower it will turn. So if we did end up using the 7m, we’d need to be careful with the steering as it’s already a zippy little thing, any tug on the end of the longer bar could send it looping off downwind.
As it happened we were nicely powered on the 9m and 11m kites with the foil boards. We initially thought twin tips as we were expecting the swell to increase, but they’re a lot more work, so we’ll always prefer the foils if we can handle them. I know if we had this sea state at the beginning of the trip we would have ended up using the twin tips today, but our technique has come on leaps and bounds since then. So have our distances!
Being surrounded by heavy fog, we all agreed to keep together. I took this literally sticking in close to Joe. When we crossed from Tiree to Uist two days ago we were having to circle back a number of times in order to not get too far away from Mentor. So with the limited visibility, I kept heading up on each tack, making sure I remained close, with Stew and I zig zagging on different tacks out in front. After two hours, the fog got worse, so we had to keep to the same tack, following in each other’s tracks, like we used to do with the sailing teacher back when I first learnt. On the second of these mirrored tacks Stew asked why I had such a different angle one way to the other. I explained I was heading up in order to stick close to Joe. It was only then that we realised, I had been slowing down to keep up with him, and he’d been slowing down to keep up with me, but neither of us had realised this! Guess better to find out after 2 hours than after 5! Annoying, as we’d have probably gotten further today before the wind died. But life goes on!

Lewis and Harris is the third largest in the British Isles, after Great Britain and the island of Ireland, that’s all three ticked off this trip!

storm kelpies

The blue men of the Minch, also known as storm kelpies are mythological creatures inhabiting this stretch of water. The creature, who apart from their colour look like humans, are said to swim with their torsos raised out of the sea, twisting and diving as porpoises do. They are able to speak, and when a group approaches a ship its chief may shout two lines of poetry to the master of the vessel and challenge him to complete the verse. If the skipper fails in that task then the blue men will attempt to capsize his ship. One such encounter noted by the jouralist Donald A. Mackenzie goes as follows:

Blue Chief: Man of the black cap what do you say
As your proud ship cleaves the brine?
Skipper: My speedy ship takes the shortest way
And I’ll follow you line by line
Blue Chief: My men are eager, my men are ready
To drag you below the waves
Skipper: My ship is speedy, my ship is steady
If it sank, it would wreck your caves.

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Apparently the quick responses took the blue chief by surprise; defeated and unable to do any damage to the vessel, the blue men returned to their underwater caves, allowing the vessel free passage through the strait. Not sure how good we are with poetry, so good thing we weren’t stopped!

Map of today’s route

Map Key: Stew (Red), Islay (White) and Mentor (Blue)

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