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With an early start from Lamlash we could have pressed on round the Mull of Kintyre where we would have favourable tides from HW Dover (0645) to HW Dover +6hrs (1245). However Sanda Island is one of our favourite places and the bottom of the Mull of Kintyre would make a great place from which to effectively start and (hopefully) end our circumnavigation. Besides, the last couple of times we'd been round "The Mull" the weather hadn't been good for a stop at Sanda and the kids would have been most disappointed had we passed it by again. With Sanda as our destination, the Mull of Kintyre tidal gate didn't come into play however we still wanted to use most of the fair tide so planned a departure at 0700.
The sea had calmed significantly since the previous day and we had good sailing in predominantly SW F3/4. We were pretty much into the wind most of the way and were a bit slower than anticipated, however by motoring for the last hour we arrived just before 1425 with well charged batteries. On the way down we suffered the first gear failure of the trip when the Autohelm stopped working. You could hear the drive trying to turn the wheel and we traced the fault to a plastic cog that had shattered (see photo). Raymarine were excellent and within a few days we had a replacement part winging its way to one of the hotels in Lochinver where we would collect it (we wanted to ensure that the replacement part didn't arrive after us so had it sent pretty far ahead).
Sanda is a lovely place with a great pub and we've found the anchorage to provide good holding in sand with shelter from S/SW winds. The pub does good food and offers showers, although the island is currently for sale so all might change. There's a nice pebble beach which shelves very gradually making it a great place for the kids to swim and seal spot and, although small, there are some great walks on the island. There are no bin facilities.