The forecast wasn't good so although we took the boat over on Wednesday, we did not set off until Thursday morning. I motored us out of Largs marina and up to just north of the Great Cumbrae. I raised the sails in a SE force 5 and noted that the first reef was already in the sail. The reefing was set up in the single line reefing method and I was happy to keep it in as the boat was well balanced at that. We sailed over to Rothesay Bay and then we messed around for quite a while between Toward point and the cardinal buoy at the start of the East Kyle. We were just seeing what the boat could do. It certainly was not great at heaving-to.
The weather broke down a bit and the sky became threatening so as we had already put some 19 miles on the clock we decided to call it a day and have a dram or three. I drove us in to the inner harbour in Rothesay and tied up to a pontoon. We were alone, until a few hours later we were joined by a German Yacht who had come over from Hamburg via the Cally Canal and was en route for Dublin. They did not know, and we did not tell them, that Tim is fluent in German and Marion and me have a reasonable grasp of the language too. We thought it strange that they addressed each other with the formal "sie" rather than "du", especially given relationships on board a yacht under passage. How very German!
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| Rothesay Harbour Master keeping an eye on me |
Rothesay was very sad and has become quite run down. But the people are as friendly as ever and the young man from the Bute Berthing Company who took my overnight fee was most friendly and helpful. In the morning I went up to the old victorian public toilet block for a shower. The cheerful lady running the place was making herself toast and tea and the smell was wonderful. I'd have given her another quid for a round of buttered toast but I had to get back to the boat alas.
We looked out into the cockpit watching the heavy rain showers sheeting past until just before lunchtime and then I decided we had to move. Last time the Harbourmaster here had seen me he was shouting "There's always Wan!" I hoped he had forgotten me and I called him on the radio to ask him to raise the footbridge and let us out. The Germans, who had been up and about since dawn, looked surprised. I suspect they had been waiting on the authorities to raise the bridge to release them and had not grasped that asking the harbourmaster was a possibility. The bridge closed behind me, no doubt to their further consternation.
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| Following us into the Holy Loch |
We had a good sail north up the Clyde in a southerly force 5. I had decided to go up there to hide from the weather. At the entrance to the Holy Loch, we took the sails down and I drove us around the loch to let the others see what it was like. I had not been here since the end of a delivery trip from Eire in 2008, and it looked pretty much the same to me.
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| Hunters Quay at the turn into the Holy Loch |
After that we tacked down the Clyde into a Force 5 SW gusting 6, making heavy weather of it. The Inverkip Chimney has been demolished! So without that as a navigation mark, I had to focus more on where we were. Eventually we put into Inverkip Marina for the night. The manager's opening words were to ask me how was my landing (whatever that meant). Inverkip marina has such an unfriendly feel to it that I think it is my least favourite place on the Clyde, and I had forgotten this. Had it not been so late and blustery I would have moved on. Anyway, the Inverkip Hotel has improved dramatically and we enjoyed a meal and drink ashore there before retiring to the boat, which bounced around all night due to the swell and the position of the visitor berths at the marina entrance.
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| A Clyde Gannet - probably from Ailsa Craig |
Saturday. Weather much improved. Set off at 10 into slight mist which soon cleared into blue skies and sun. Force 4 westerly, Kept the reef in as the wind gradually increased to a F5. Really excellent sailing and a real pleasure after the last two days. We made south for Lamlash Bay on Arran. As we entered the bay the wind increased significantly, so I had to lassoo the mooring buoy. The boat was poorly equipped with warps and we had to tie a couple of short warps together to make a mooring line I was happy with and eventually we sat back to relax and have a dram.
I really like it here. I don't know if its the Dharma Bums over on Holy Island who exude a feeling of peace, but peaceful it certainly was and the wind dropped completely to give us a beautiful and quiet night.
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| Lamlash as evening falls |
Sunday was a lovely quiet gorgeous morning. The sort where you sit in the cockpit with your coffee in the warm sun and don't want to go anywhere. All the cares of the world melted away. The Buddhists over on the island had probably been up for about 6 hours already. They have a bunch of women over on the north end of the island who are in the middle of a four year retreat and they are not allowed to talk to anyone. Can you imagine that?
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| Pladda Island |
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| Ailsa Craig |
I went to shake the first reef out for the first time since departing Largs and I found that I could not pull the sail up. I went up to the mast to puzzle it out. The reefing line led up from the clutch through a fairlead U-guide popped onto the mast, before going up onto the sail. The top of this fairlead had been pulled back from the mast though constant use and this had created a gap where the reefing line had fallen down through over winching and had become jammed. The sheath of the line had been sawed though, and the core partially cut. I phoned the charterer. He said that if I cut the line to take out the reef to be sure to tie a stopper in the line, but I said I would try to manage with the reef in. Otherwise, if I needed a first reef I would have to rig one using one of the warps. I could do this easily enough, but was being idle and did not want to use warps as reefing lines. I cannot emphasise the lesson more strongly: if you charter a yacht, make certain that before you take the boat you pull the sails up and check them. In fairness to myself, when I took the boat over the boat was moored stern to the wind - which was blowing 15 knots - and even if I had raised them I would not have taken the reef out! But - no excuse really. For them or for me.
We motored under the lighthouse and told the guys my tales of meeting the scouser who lived there in the lightkeepers cottage and how he boasted to me about how he would drive along the Dorlinn (causeway) when covered with tide, even in the dark, and on listening to my warnings to him he told me that I was risk averse. Well dear reader, he eventually drowned inside his landrover one dark night on that same tide covered causeway and I'm still risk averse.
We tied up at the last space available at the end of the north side of the pontoon. Not the most elegant example of my boat handling, but no one asked me how my landing was. Paid my berthing fees and was advised that the leisure centre had a "special" shower for yacht people. We declined the offer. I didn't like the sound of this and in Campbeltown it pays to be risk averse. However, I belied my own advice here and went to the Royal Hotel for dinner. Marion walked out on her main course (I have to say, I would not have given it to my dog). Then we had the dozen drunken Dutch golfers. Then we had the large French yacht which all lights ablaze arrived in the dark and tied up on the harbour wall in front of the lifeboat. (I heard that the previous week another yacht had for some reason left the East Cardinal to their East and had run aground, needing the lifeboat to tow them off). I got talking to the former chandler who was tied opposite in his ketch and may have misheard him and thought he said swindler instead of chandler. It all became very mental. Very Campbeltown. And ...and ...I hit the sack.
The following morning I woke to find another yacht had arrived in the night and tied up in the small space available behind me. She had been late in and had come around the Mull from Stornoway. I met the skipper on the pontoon and discovered that he was my old YM examiner! After telling me off for the way my stern warps had been tied onto the pontoon cleat giving him difficulty with his bow ropes when he arrived, we had a good chat over old times. Then I met another guy I knew from the past when he had been chief engineer to a well known international yacht charter company. the last time I had seen him was in Cork when he had to repair the binnacle of my boat which had been prised loose by people hanging onto it in heavy seas and I had temporarily lashed it together with a spare sheet. I had hoped that he may have forgotten. He remembered.
The wind was blowing me onto the pontoon, so no pressure on me about how to leave the pontoon, what with my old examiner sitting tied up one metre behind me. I arranged a bow spring which went off neatly and as I glided safely astern past the examiner's boat the engineer was in the cockpit. He told me the examiner was in the town having a bacon buttie and had missed my cool manouevre. So I could have just pushed off and jumped onboard anyway.
We motored out of Campbeltown-Loch-I-Wish-you-Were-Whisky while singing Campbeltown-Loch-I-Wish-You-Were-Whisky and turned north up Kilbrannan Sound. No wind and a southerly swell. With Saddell Bay off to port we put the engine into neutral for a while to watch the dolphins and porpoises. There were a lot of these around as well as Shearwaters and other birds. Must have been shoals of fish.
At lunchtime I motored into Carradale to have a look at the new visitors buoys. What a tip Carradale looks from the sea. A sort of scrapyard on the sea front. Not attractive or welcoming. After this, the wind picked up and remained variable until we arrived at Tarbert, Loch Fyne, and took up a visitor space on the pontoon.
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| Tarbert and the new pontoons |
What a change since I was last here around 2002! At that time there was a single long pontoon and a number of boats on private moorings. I clearly remember rowing across the harbour to the fish quay. Now, you can practically walk across the harbour on all the new pontoons. There is no doubt that a fine job has been made and as a marina type complex it is very tasteful, however I still felt a pang of nostalgia for the old Tarbert. Still, if change has to come, Tarbert has set an example of how to do it.
We ate ashore and the following morning there was no wind so we had a slow start. We all had showers and climbed up to visit the Robert the Bruce Castle. The midges were as bad as I remembered. Probably the same midges as got into my beard last time I was here a decade or so ago!
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| Heron at low tide while departing Tarbert |
We left at lunchtime in flat calm conditions and motored over to Portavadie as I had never been here since the marina was created and I wanted to have a look. Very swanky, and we were given a tour of the facilities before sitting on the raised terrace having coffee and carrot cake. Very nice, but not really my sort of place. There were a good number of people about, but we were the only ones wearing sailing kit for actually sailing and - weirdly - we were the only people in the entire marina that were actually walking on the pontoons. During our tour, to the slight discomfiture of our guide I think, we were all intensely interested in the large "family bathroom" which can be hired for £10. It was the most interesting thing there and it would be a fine way to while away the time if you and your crew were ever stormbound in Loch Fyne.
Ah well, onwards, motoring southwards in complete calm. Went inside Skate island and had a short detour into Ascog Bay to look for mussels, but the tide had covered them. At 1600 hrs we were at the Ardlamont Buoy and there was a slight southerly wind so we put the sails up (still with 1 reef in). After a while it was clear that nothing was doing so we motorsailed up the West Kyle to pick up a buoy off the hotel at Kames. Bit of a faff really and we eventually picked it up at the stern before walking the slime line up to the bows. A calm evening with gulls squawking around us for a while before even they packed it in and we had a quiet and peaceful night.
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| Caladh Harbour in the Kyles of Bute |
Final day and no wind at all. Slipped the buoy and drove up and into Caladh Harbour to let the guys see it. There was a heron sitting on the tree looking at us. Then drove through the Kyles (south passage) and down the East Kyle, across Rothesay Bay and round the north of the Cumbrae before landing on the pontoon at the National Sailing Centre. We had a wander ashore and then lunch before motoring over the Largs, filling up at the fuel pontoon and then moving back into our home berth.
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| The East Kyle looking SE |
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| At the pontoon on Cumbrae |
It had been a good cruise of just over 150 nautical miles. It was great being back on the Clyde. But you know what? I found it a little claustrophobic. A fantastic place to sail, but I think I have outgrown it and hadn't realised that until this trip. Great destination for day sailing or a long weekend, but a week is long enough to cover most of it.
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| A Shag on a buoy |
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