Day 6 - Sun, sails and scones...

Trying to blow enough wind into the sails to move Tenacity

Difficult navigation through the Burnt Isles

Gluttony and great fun on the High Seas...

Wednesday was the day Paloma had been waiting for...scrambled eggs and homemade bread for breakfast, and more importantly, hash browns! (Made by Jess and Humairaa, they never thought they could achieve it!) After having found them in the Co-Op they were eagerly anticipated by all and vanished within seconds of landing on plates. The weather forecast was a North Westerly wind, force 4 or 5 and thundery showers so the day was understandably being dreaded by us all (how different they day would turn out to be! I’ll come back to this...). 

The sails were up and we spent a good half an hour waiting for the wind to kick in, but it never did. During this time deep conversations took place discussing many theories of life and quantum physics – a bit more heavy than the usual Tenacity conversations! Finally we were in fact starting to go backwards so a joint decision was made to turn on the engine. A real shame, but it did save us from the endless tacking we had all been dreading as the way we were going to get up the East Kyle. As the peace was about to be broken by the engine, a couple of porpoises were spotted only 100 metres from Tenacity! Cameras were whipped out (typically they didn’t surface that often anymore) and we relished the time we had to watch them play in the beautiful surroundings. As the motor was turned on, Humairaa and Paloma headed down to the galley to start on some homemade chocolate chip cookies.

The plan for the day included the fact that all of the meals and snacks had to be homemade. The cookies that were produced were incredible, and Sid even had a little one of his own! The galley was very busy today, so as soon as the cookie mess had been cleaned away, Maddie and Jess headed down to start on Max’s famous spinach and chickpea with cous cous recipe. This went down a treat with our pretty little anchorage near the Burnt Isles, and the sun had come out by now so everyone wanted to be on deck.

The waterproofs came off, we were advised to wear sun cream and it was WARM!! The wind still wasn’t picking up so the engine stayed on and we powered along in the blissful sun and light breeze. As we headed down the West Kyle we found what we had been waiting for...wind. We had a late change of plan as it was our last day of sailing and we wanted to make the most of it. Instead of heading straight to our anchorage for the night, we made a sharp starboard turn and decided to venture to an anchorage on the Kintyre peninsular for afternoon tea and scones (homemade of course by Claire and Kajol)! The sail to our anchorage for the night wasn’t quite as smooth as we had hoped, due to the fact the wind now decided to change around to a north easterly. Humairaa and Ellie had a rollercoaster of a journey in the galley trying their best not to let pans and washing up fly around everywhere, but still made a delicious dinner of chicken or pork with mash and veg, ready for our arrival in Callums Bay. They even managed to knock up some lovely flapjack and send it up to top deck to keep the crew going until we reached our final destination. The crew on deck tried to be positive and pass the time by again entering into more serious conversations about plans for life and how excited but terrified we all are about growing up!



After an initial pessimistic view of today, it turned out to be the best day of the whole week with our singing deteriorating but spirits very high. I think I say on behalf of all the crew that we’ve had a very enjoyable week, rain or shine, and feel that we have learnt a vast amount from Dawn and Max and had a fantastic time putting this information into action!



See you tomorrow...
Love From a Tired and Happy Crew