I can see why people get so excited by Skye: although of course it’s an island it absolutely dominates the coast for miles around – its mountains tower over the other islands and most of the mainland peninsulas, and because the bit of water that makes it an island is so famously narrow, it just looks like a continuation of the Highlands (geologists, yes, I do know that it actually is exactly that, but still…). And it is incredibly beautiful to look at. So after a month of looking at it from near and far, it was time to visit; indeed, to circumnavigate.
I had been there once before, just briefly, when we were on holiday just over the sea from it. We are now so old that this was shortly after they’d built the bridge, and we wondered why there had been so much fuss – about the tolls, which is understandable, but also from those islanders who felt that Skye would no longer be a proper island if it had a bridge, it would be overrun and lose some of its magical quality as a result, which at the time seemed like nonsense. However, it would appear that it has changed beyond recognition because it is now so much easier to get to.
The mentions of Skye I have heard on this trip involve two very different kinds of tourists. The first is the coach tours of the Highlands who whizz over the bridge, take a few selfies in the famous beauty spots, and whizz on to dinner in Inverness or Fort William or London. I’ve had several Scots tell me they wouldn’t consider going there now as a result, and a couple we had dinner with in Doune (see post before last) had gone to Skye in March to avoid the tourists and recounted tales of car parks so full they couldn’t get to see the sights at all. The second, less predictable, kind of tourist is the well-heeled gastronome: Skye has spawned a ridculous number of food businesses, including a range of hotels and restaurants with London prices (and a fair few Michelin stars).
Well I can’t say a three-day circumnavigation provides conclusive proof, but everything I saw does seem to confirm both hypotheses. Although I should confess that although I have sailed around it once and past it about half a dozen times, often quite close, I only actually set foot on it once, but perhaps that’s just as well. And when I say ‘sail’, I’m afraid I almost entirely mean ‘motor’, but at least that makes a stable platform from which to gawp at jaw-dropping cliffs and take photos.
I’d made Dunvegan the first stop: first, because it was a sensible distance from Canna, and second, because it has a castle which was reputed to be worth a visit. I actually can’t remember the last time I visited a castle and now I have ticked off two in a week, and both were excellent. Dunvegan provided even better boat photo opportunities, both from the anchorage…
…and an even better through-the-window shot from Chief MacLeod’s study
It also made Eilean Doonan feel like a quiet backwater. Streams of tourists filed through, but it was all very well managed with pamphlets in each room in no less than ten languages. The supposedly remote MacLeod outpost certainly didn’t feel at all remote, and its famously stunning gardens were about as quiet as Chelsea on opening day. I couldn’t fault it for ticking lots of Scottish castle boxes with plenty of murders, ghosts, inter-clan treachery and another set of entirely un-self-conscious memorabila of modern day MacLeod chiefs living a lovely lifestyle, and after a while I got used to rubbing shoulders with a thousand other people in ten languages and had a jolly time. I only had two issues with it: first, and here it is not alone, the very Scottish approach of pebble-dashing the whole thing…
…and second, amongst all the family portraits, quite the worst painting of anyone I have ever seen:
I don’t care what ‘Ann, daughter of 22nd Chief MacLeod, wife of Professor Hill’, looked like in real life, I hope she got her money back and ensured that George Willison never painted again.
I was all set to enjoy the evening being the only yacht to anchor off the castle instead of heading up to the village where there is not one but two gastropubs, when from the battlements I had to watch as I was rather upstaged by the arrival of this huge and annoyingly elegant wooden Dutch yacht. Amazingly I had seen it in Falmouth with a hand-written sign saying ‘Deckhand required for summer. Some sailing experience preferred.’ It was when Raymond had broken down and I briefly considered applying, but I doubt I would have earned enough to cover the berthing fees if I had left Blue Moon there.
Now I had a decision to make. Would I spend the next night in Portree, the self-styled capital of Skye, or in Acairseid Mhor, the self-styled best anchorage in Scotland, which is not actually on Skye but on Rona, an offlying island? Rona got the nod, I needed to tick my ‘best of’ boxes and anyway Portree looks identical to Tobermory but with the colours on the houses swapped around a bit. This decision set the tone for the rest of my Skye visit: I would look at it from the sea but not set foot on it, thereby avoiding both the tourists and the risk of accidentally eating a Michelin-starred dinner.
This turned out to be a good decision: it looks amazing from the sea, with huge cliffs and rock stacks.
I motored as close as I dared to some of the pointy bits and confirmed my decision was the right one: most headlands had a car park next door, and most of these were stuffed full of campervans.
It also has quite a few waterfalls where quite sizeable rivers just plunge over the cliffs into the sea. I’d seen a few on the less famous South Coast (of Skye, not the South Coast, there are no waterfalls on Selsey Bill), but not as big as this one:
Apparently this is the famous Mealt Falls, which accounts for the hundreds of people you can see on the clifftop to the left. They’re peering over railings to look at it sideways, I got to motor up to the bottom of it and have a good full frontal look all on my own. I even motored into Portree Bay, checked the houses weren’t more colourful than Tobermory’s, and motored out again.
There are no tourists on Rona. It’s a tiny island owned (it appears) by a nice couple I met when I rowed ashore. They didn’t chat for long as they were videoing their motorboat prior to listing it on eBay, but they run a nice off-grid holiday business involving two bothies, a bunkhouse and not much else. They do rather glamorous weddings according to the website, but I reckon you must have to bring the whole lot over on a boat as there was absolutely nothing there. What they do have is a bunch of yacht moorings dotted around a stunning natural harbour full of rocks and seals and otters, an empty island you can go walking around (I hiked over the hills to see a cave that is supposed to look like a church) and a herd of deer that they turn into burgers and sell surprisingly large quantities of. I bought a couple from the honesty freezer (yes, a new concept for me too) and they were absolutely delicious. The moorings are very popular what with this being the self-styled best etc, but there was just me and two other yachts in total silence.
Not quite silence, unfortunately. It was so calm and the island so completely empty that I could hear every word of the argument the couple on the boat across the bay were having. They were from Edinburgh, if I know my Scottish accents. I don’t really but I can spot that very refained mellow tone that posh Edinburghers have which must make them the most infuriating people to argue with as they sound so very clever, reasonable and utterly inscrutable. Believe it or not they were arguing about independence: she was pro, he was anti and was using the Great Sturgeon Campervan Affair as a weapon to prove that all thoughts of independence were wrong, an argument so obviously flawed that it only served to prove my point about the accent because he managed to sound eminently reasonable. I was quite pleased when it came on to rain and we all shut our hatches.
I wanted to get South now so it was back under that bridge (my one bit of sailing) and down Kyle Rhea which I felt I knew now. The once-cheery ferry called me up on the VHF in a way that suggested he had had to wait for me, which he hadn’t. I wanted to ask about the sick dog but he didn’t sound so friendly this time and in any case that sort of idle chit chat is frowned on in marine VHF circles.
I’d also made an impressive pitstop at Kyle of Localsh, which is not on Skye but exists solely because of it. Impressive because I had managed to reverse Blue Moon into a tiny space all on my own without hitting anything, but also because I had beaten my target time of two hours, which is about all you should spend in Kyle of Localsh, which is a tiny village stuffed full of rather grimy things you’d expect in a big port. I managed to fit in a trip to the harbourmaster to get some diesel (it’s a one-man harbour even though it is buzzing with trawlers, freighters and tripper boats), a trip to the post office, a trip to the chemist, a hot shower, a full tank of water and a weekly shop in the giant Co-op. I even managed to squeeze in a toasted Cuban sandwich sold to me by a very obviously Cuban woman whose entire menu other than the Cubana consisted of pizzas and wraps. When I ordered the only Cuban thing on offer I thought she was going to kiss me. I ate it in the rain, looking at the land of Michelin across the sea. That sums up Kyle of Localsh really: it’s as if someone had dumped Lowestoft onto the end of the Skye Bridge and just left it there feeling rather out of place, looking across the water at another world.
My final destination was Isle Ornsay, which again is not actually Skye but an island off it even tinier than Rona which makes a small harbour between itself and Skye’s ‘mainland’. It was as calm and peaceful as Rona except that it was surrounded by houses and hotels, which all looked very quaint and authentic. However, a quick look at Google Maps revealed that around half the houses were holiday rentals, and of the three hotels in sight one restaurant was in The Guide, the other two had pretentions to join them and just around the corner in the next bay you could moor for free if you went ashore, got dressed up and sat down to the £95 menu.
I sat in the cockpit dodging the rain and watching a fantastic rainbow frame Loch Hourn in the distance, eating my Rona venison burger, and thinking that you don’t have to go over the sea to enjoy Skye, it’s great from the sea.
Blue Moon's trip around the UK 
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