CRUISING HONEYMOON THROUGH THE CRINAN CANAL

Newlyweds Stuart and Emma start their happily ever after' by piloting Evolene up the west coast of Scotland

- Emma Fletcher

Adventures that start with a party are some of the best. After the formalities of saying 'I do' and celebrating with family and friends, Stuart and I were now married. Our honeymoon would be two - weeks of sailing up the west coast of Scotland in perfect weather aboard our new-to-us Nauticat 42, Evolene.

On one of our early dates, I had assured Stuart that I could sail. However, it would be a few months before the extent of that 'ability' would become clear. Growing up on the east coast of Scotland I used to spend summer evenings and weekend days on the family's 21-foot Pandora, Panache, which was a bit of a squeeze for a family of four plus a labrador. I loved helming and grew confident avoiding the bridges spanning the Tay and all the potential sandbank hazards on the Scottish east coast. Fast forward a few decades and our first holiday as a couple was a bareboat charter in the Stockholm Archipelago. The holiday quickly highlighted that my confidence did not extend to pilotage in confined water, or other 'essentials' for that matter, such as the rules of the road, radio etiquette and boat handling in marinas or the like.

Thankfully, my love of being outdoors and on the water remained, and on our return from Sweden we bought a Moody S31 and berthed her in the Clyde. Tomkat proved to be an ideal boat for developing my sailing skills, enjoying lots of miniadventures and leading us further into the shared aspiration of spending increased time on the water in years to come. With that in mind we started to form plans of selling Tomkat and looking for a boat suitable for cruising northern Europe and potentially living aboard for longer periods of time. We thought that we would do this sometime over the next four of five years, but then Evolene came along...