We set off on our cruise last Saturday; it bucketed down in Oban in the morning but by the time we got on the Glen Tarsan late in the afternoon the weather was fine. The boat is a converted fishing trawler, set up for 11 passengers and 4 crew – small and not luxurious but comfortable.

Unfortunately the weather for our 6 days wasn’t good enough to out beyond Ardnamurchan Point to see puffins, but we had a fine time cruising the Sound of Mull between the Isle of Mull and Morven, exploring various lochs, going ashore for walks, visits to castles and just generally getting out and about. We had the best part of a day on Mull, visiting some of the suppliers the chef uses, meeting highland cattle, visiting the local artisan cheese producer and having an artisan chocolate tasting.

We were the only folk from our side of the world, the others were all from the UK. We were lucky in that we all got along – there’s not a lot of space to escape to!! The crew were great – Gordon, the chef, turned out amazing food from the very tight kitchen, Claire and Ray – purser and engineer turned their hands to all kinds of tasks including making sure everyone got in and out of the tender safely (very few pontoons in the areas we went to) and Steve the skipper was always happy to have folk hanging out with him in the wheelhouse.

So, here are some pics. They probably make the weather look a little better than it was – we had strong north westerly winds a great deal of the time which made going into open water at the western end of the Sound of Mull too uncomfortable; the sister boat of ours was supposed to go to Skye but it was just too rough so they tried but came back and did a similar program to ours – with boats of this size the itinerary is more of a guideline than a hard and fast program.