Faith in mankind restored

After a perfect sail from Gigha to Jura, a good breeze, blue skies and sun shining we had a bit of a 'mare coming onto a mooring buoy. The wind really got up at this point and there was 20 Knots blowing across the bay, also the mooring buoys are tricky as you have to thread a line though the top of the buoy from the bow of the boat, not easy in a strong wind. (Other mooring buoys have a large rope loop attached to the buoy which you can scoop up with a boat hook and attach your mooring lines to this, rather than having to reach down and thread a line).

Anyhow, after we managed to fix ourselves to the buoy and could relax we became aware of a chap on another yacht shouting to us and pointing out to sea. After much further shouting we realised what he was saying - during the effort to grapple with the buoy our dinghy line had been chopped by our propeller and the dinghy was rapidly disappearing out of the bay.

Our spirits sunk, we were going to have to release the mooring buoy we had such a problem catching and head off at pace to rescue the dinghy, otherwise no trips ashore and an expensive trip back to the mainland to buy a replacement.  At this point another yacht, who was just about to leave shouted across and said they would go and fetch our dinghy and sure enough they set off, collected it and brought it right back to us and disappeared off.  We were extremely grateful and warmed to see the effort a fellow sailor made for us.

After a good nights sleep today has been a very hot day and the bay is very calm and still, nothing like yesterday. We visited the Jura distillery and much prefer a less peaty whisky - so much so that we bought a couple of bottles - just for medicinal purposes.