We weighed anchor under sail and sped through the southern Sound of Jura toward Islay, carried by the tide and a strong wind. Off Port Ellen, the tide had turned and the wind was coming straight from the front, so we were hardly making any progress over the last few miles to the harbor. As always docking was an adventure in the strong wind, and it didn’t work out until the third try and while backing off another berth—even though we were trying to steer straight astern—Amy decided to make a large circle right onto our assigned finger dock. How nice.
First, we had to rest a bit, but the next day we set out to hike the 3 Distilleries Walk and visit the three whisky distilleries: Laphroaig, Lagavulin, and Ardbeg. The guided tours were all booked out, but we were still able to go inside and look around a bit. At Ardbeg, the last of the three, a polish crew was just exiting and one of them was singing and dancing and apparently in the best of moods. This had to be the best place for a Whisky tasting. A plan we immediately put into practice. After five whiskys which were all great but which were getting harder and harder to tell apart, the three-and-a-half-mile walk back seemed to take forever. The landscape here is beautiful.
A strong wind was constantly blowing, and on the third day, just as we were about to cast off that evening, a Belgian yacht drifted straight onto Amy and, while trying to back away from us, got its pulpit and anchor caught on our railing. I had run up on deck because of the shouts and was able to hold it off a little, but the anchor got caught just behind our railing post. In my mind’s eye, I could already see it first bending, then breaking, and lastly drifting away with a piece of our deck attached to the Belgian boat, but by some incredibly lucky coincidence, it slipped off the railing post; the other yacht was free, and Amy suffered nothing more than a minor scratch on the railing post. We felt the adrenaline in our bodies for a very long time afterwards. The Belgians who were also shocked docked elsewhere,and were very worried—and then very relieved—that nothing more had happened. So were we.
That evening, we set out to take advantage of the weather and the tide to make our way over to Northern Ireland. Belfast Lough was our destination.