Day 9: In and around Mallaig

The day in Mallaig began dull and overcast, not helped by the town's slightly drab demeanour. We had been told by the very friendly harbourmaster that we could 'dry out' against the harbour wall, and as the tide was already on the way out by 8.15am, we gently approached the harbour wall in the centre of town, picking a spot that would allow the boat to be dry in an hour or 2 but with enough window of tide to have options as to when to float off again when the tide returned. We laid the full anchor chain down the sidedeck to help heel the boat towards the wall, and set up a breasting line around the mast and a steel ring on the dockside, to help prevent the boat from falling the wrong way if she dried on an uneven surface. Before long, the boat was gently wallowing as she settled in the mud, before finally coming to rest, all 10 tons of her, against the harbour wall. The look on the tourists faces was priceless - surely those numpties on that blue boat didnt just accidentally run aground in the middle of town?!

The offending bobstay fitting...

Tide going...

Gone!

Crowds of tourists, eating fish suppers on the quay and discussing how they think we've messed up...

As the tide dropped below the level of the bobstay fitting, we undid the bolts and cleaned it off before the Skipper's dad took it over to the local boatyard to see if it could be welded back together again. One of the skilled metalworkers had it back together within the hour, and with the boat now high and dry, we set about bolting it back in place on a bed of polyurethane mastic (sticky black shit to the uninitiated). Rapid painting of the area followed, although this only got as far as the 2nd coat of undercoat before the tide returned, and so we settled down for a night against the wall, preceded by a nice dinner in the local seafood restaurant.

In between all this, there was enough time to  explore Mallaig and get some washing done at the Fisherman's Mission, a jolly sort of place with a cafe, second hand bookshop and showers for visiting boatsmen and the like. The cafe is run by a lady called Johnston, and while the Skipper was a the Mission the Skipper's brother was off getting petrol for the Seagull outboard from Johnston's Garage. A quick visit to Johnston's Chandlers to pick up a few maintenance items led os to believe that perhaps we were meant to be here all along...

Later in the day, Ma and Pa Johnston left for home and Seamen Finnigan and Janus rejoined the boat, and along with the Skipper and brother Neil we set about a mini pub crawl of Mallaig (easily achieved as all the pubs are within the ricochet of a tennis ball's distance of one another). The rain lashed down mercilessly over the grey town, but at least the cruise would now be able to carry on.