The sun will come around again
Hello folks!
It was another busy year onboard Eda Frandsen; in fact, it may well have been her busiest season yet! With 18 fully booked voyages from Cornwall to Scotland and back again, by November, Eda had more than earned the little refit that we have just finished at C Toms & Son in Polruan. As with all great sailing adventures, there were very few dull moments this summer, from visiting the Gannetry at Ailsa Craig in the Spring, to discovering a (new to us) anchorage on the North side of Jura, to Storm Floris and beyond. Each week onboard is entirely different and special for its own reasons. If you joined us this summer, we thank you, for being the cogs that keep our little business going and for putting your time and faith in us to deliver the best of the West Coast of the UK.
This season was not without its surprises, notably a nasty entanglement with a lobster pot in a very narrow anchorage on the East side of Lewis. Luckily, the Stornoway lifeboat was available to tow us back to safety; unluckily, Stella managed to break a bone in her right hand in the process of trying to free it. Thankfully, this was the only serious damage, and our season was able to continue as planned, albeit with the help of a few extra sailors. Stella is now back in full working order, and our season finished happily back in Falmouth at the end of September with a rip-roaring sail down the Irish Sea. With stop-offs in Belfast and Dublin, we rounded the Lizard to a beautiful sunrise at the end of our fifth (!) year of sailing.
This will be our last winter in Cornwall for a while, as we plan to winter in Scotland at the end of 2026, and we are excited to continue to explore all that Scotland has to offer in the coming years.
Many of you travelled from far and wide to meet us this summer, and we hope that you enjoyed yourselves as much as we did. There are many more secrets of Scotland’s West Coast to uncover, and we hope you will consider joining us again for many years to come.
a note from the deep…
A quiver of electric energy shimmers down the deck when whales or dolphins are spotted. A whisper passed from person to person, all eyes cast to the same part of the horizon.
Sightings of whales and dolphins from Eda’s bow seem to come in waves, summoned by schools of mackerel and herring, and this year seemed to be a particularly fruitful one.
One encounter that stands out above all others was with a particularly inquisitive Minke whale on a completely calm and glassy day, just inside the Outer Hebrides. One such an afternoon, it is possible to hear a Minke exhale as it surfaces, often before it is spotted. On this particular day, turning off the engine and drifting with soft sails, our Minke circled closer and closer with each deep dive. He eventually surfaced right below Eda’s bow, letting out a huge puff of air before ducking to swim directly beneath her midships, just meters below the surface. To our amazement, he repeated this route several times, surfacing at the bow where we gathered, before ducking just below the keel.
It was an encounter that I am sure none of us will forget in a hurry, and an example of something that modern life often seems to lack, the inherent inquisitive nature of the natural world.
