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12 Day Cruises
Western Isles & St Kilda
Having 12 days
available allows us to venture almost anywhere in the Hebrides and
Western Isles and perhaps to St Kilda, weather permitting. On some
cruises it may be possible for us to pick up our new guests at Castle
bay on Barra after they have travelled as foot passengers on the
ferry from Oban. This will extend the area we are able to visit
considerably and avoid the long sailing passage from Dunstaffnage to the
Western Isles. We will then return to the marina at the end of the
trip where our guests may have left their vehicles.
This is a new idea which we tried out in 2008 and found to work very
well indeed. It particularly makes St Kilda a more likely
prospect.
During the
cruises, passage times are such that we are able to enjoy
visiting the islands with plenty of time to go ashore to explore and enjoy them. In the evenings
we stop overnight at isolated anchorage's where we always lie to anchor and except during one day when
we need to get stores and take on water, we do not visit populated harbours.
We try to maintain a high standard of catering and comfort on
board as you would expect. Partway
through the trip we have to stop off at a more "civilised" harbour to
take on water and stores and we take the opportunity for some time off as a rest period for everyone.
We eat ashore at a local hostelry, giving crew a break and guests a
change of scenery!
St Kilda
With all the TV coverage it has had, some with superb photography, St Kilda has
become a very popular place. I can remember when Hirta was a very difficult
island to visit with only a handful of people making it there every year.
Now there are several ways of visiting - from day trips to week or fortnight long charters,
travelling out on board RIBs right up to Ocean going cruisers.
 But to be able
to say you have visited St Kilda on a sailing vessel is something very
special and is still restricted to a small number of people.
For many centuries the inhabitants of St Kilda relied on sailing boats to come
out from Skye carrying essential stores, new residents and the
owners agent. The boats would return bearing feathers, fulmar oil, cheeses, cloth and
any other goods by which the islanders could pay the costs of their
rent. To voyage to the archipelago by similar means gives the
traveller a true taste of the isolation of the islands, even if it
is in the comfort of a modern ocean going sailing yacht.
However St Kilda
is a wonderful place to visit for its' unique history, geology
and for of course the spectacular wildlife.
In particular
seeing Boreray with its massive Gannet colony is a lifetime
memory experience
We try to
stay for two or three days in village bay and spend some time on
Hirta as well as visiting the off lying islands in the archipelago before leaving and
visiting some of the less popular islands elsewhere- the Monachs, the Flannans, or the Priest islands to the south of Barra.
At the start of
the trip it may be possible for us to pick up our guests at Castle
bay on Barra after they have travelled as foot passengers on the
ferry from Oban. This will extend the area we are able to visit
considerably and avoid the long passage from Dunstaffnage to the
Western Isles. We will then return to the marina at the end of the
trip where our guests may have left their vehicles.
Prices
Prices are all inclusive except for alcoholic drinks:
£1290.00 per person per twelve day trip - 2009
A 5% discount applies to all those guests
who have travelled with David on previous vessels.
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