With the sails up in the NE wind...
...Tony and I made rapid progress towards Murray's Isles.
Soon we rounded the rocks at their western point and...
...slipped below the old cottage that was once used by pilots and excise men. The window in the gable end allowed them to keep an eye on the horizon for approaching ships. The isle was now devoid of the colonies of breeding cormorants and gulls that had nested here from April until early August.
The reefs of the
smaller Murray's Isle soon slipped...
...astern as we made across the mouth of Fleet Bay towards...
...the reefs of Barlocco Isle. After all the recent rainfall the atmosphere was exceptionally clear and we were able to see as far (51km) as
St Bees Head in Cumbria on the English side of the Solway Firth.
On the SW side of Barlocco there is a maze of rocky channels in which to spend time trying to thread a way through.
