Sadly lacking the week’s earlier blazing sunshine and light winds, Ullapool CRC’s crew of five wizened old salts, for the stretch from Badluarach on the south side of Little Loch Broom to Ullapool, were faced with a dull overcast day, northerly winds of anything up to 12 knots and slight or moderate seas, according to the Met forecast…
Rather than the closer Ardmair Bay, we decided to make for Ullapool – three miles further – as the weather was not unpleasant and the flood tide would sweep us majestically downwind up Loch Broom to be greeted by the hysterical crowd of two dog walkers on a damp Ullapool beach sometime in the afternoon … and it would leave Cùl Mòr ‘at home’ ready for the next Ullapool crew to take her on to Badentarbet Bay in Coigach the following day.
Though visibility was adequate, and the trip would involve pilotage rather than needing to wave a brass sextant about, mist and rain were threatened; we had a hand-held compass, Trails app on a mobile phone which gives a reasonably accurate track and position, and rough outline of our passage, which involved four legs:
- Badluarach to 3 cables West off Cailleach Head: 2.3 NM 330° T
- 3 cables W. off Cailleach Head to 5 cables North off Carn Dearg: 2NM 050° T
- 5 cables off Cearn Dearg to Ardmair beach: 6NM 100° T
- OR 5 cables off Carn Dearg to Rhue Lt: 5NM 110° T
- 1 cable off Rhue Lt to Ullapool Pt: 3 NM on 130° T
At Carn Dearg Point, we would have a choice whether to push on the Ullapool or reduce the passage by some three miles and head for Ardmair Bay if necessary. The total passage to Ullapool was 13 miles.
With a Ullapool HW at 0542, it meant we would have a fair tide ebbing under us from Badluarach to Cailleach Head which distance we expected to cover in about an hour, given we would be rowing into a northerly wind, but somewhat protected by the Scoraig peninsula till by the Cailleach light; then slackish water around Cailleach Head with the flood coming as we passed Carn Dearg. In theory…
A request of Ron, our sturdy cox, for a Snickers bar for the rowers was met with a blank stare and a cloaked eructation followed by the unmistakeable aroma of peanuts…
In the 1980’s the whole of Annat Bay was filled in winter time with Klondykers, the local name for the fishing boats and East European factory ships who processed mackerel and herring for their home markets.
We dragged Cùl Mòr up the wee pier at Ullapool at 1530, fighting our way through the hysterical mobs of small molluscs and a crab with a bugle. Now for that libation.