Dunoon

The nice marina lady told us about all the local eateries. Also that to get into town there was an excellent local taxi firm. Buses we asked?  Somewhat surprised, she said there was a good service. How about cycling or walking? Amazement! Clearly, people with “The big boat” are expected to use taxis all the time and eat out.  We learned that the route via the waterfront was 5 miles, and the “direct” one 2.5 – sounded OK to us, we need to keep a little active…...

The walk along the waterside with some sun was lovely. An interesting area – they used to quarantine ships here before they were allowed to deliver their goods to Glasgow:

Patrick has a buddy stationed in Kiru, a small village on the coast:

 

Pity he is used as a rubbish bin and has another as a neighbour. Not a good penguin diet.

For some reason, the locals like painting stones on the shoreline too:

The town of Dunoon in pictures:

They refurbished this lovely building on the pier, and then closed the pier to the public as it wasn’t safe…. Work out the logic in that:

The museum:

One surprising thing – the traditional Scottish drink (Irn Bru, “Made from girders”) seems to have gone soft if this discarded can is to be believed:

Low calorie drinks being consumed in Scotland, the home of the deep fried Mars bar and deep fried pizza?? What is happening in this world?

A cake discourse:

In Scotland they tend to like slices of “dry” cake, or millionaires shortbread, scones etc. The English habit of having lots of different gooey cakes available by the “wedge”, often served with lashings of cream, isn’t too common here. So, we were pleased to find some carrot cake in a teashop in town. On a scale of disgusting to amazing, it was well above half way up. Sadly, not competition for the St Ives offering (see earlier post) but nice to be reunited with the stuff after several weeks abstinence.

We have been brave though. We saw some “truly irresistible” carrot cake in the Co-op and bought one. Not sampled yet so the report back has to wait. However, the “truly irresistible” bread we brought at the same time has proven not to live up to its name…..

On the walk back to the Marina (the shorter 2.5 mile bit), we saw a little shop and office trying to hint to people about how to vote in the upcoming Scottish independence referendum. They seem to want to be separated from the rest of the UK quite badly. Made us feel very welcome:

No passport needed yet though.

Maintenance:

The Captain decided to fix something that has been lurking around for a while. There is a manifold bracket on the generator mounting which links the black genset fuel pipes to the blue external fuel supply and return lines. The pipes fit into this bracket using 90 degree elbows:

For a while, there was “wetness” around 3 of the 4 fittings, meaning that they needed resealing at some stage. Not a proper leak but...

  

Rant of the day – the stupid elbow fittings are not adjustable so when you screw them into the bracket all 4 end up pointing in totally the wrong direction for the pipe runs that have to be connected to them. Grr.

Why they use these and not ones where the angle can be adjusted once fitted is beyond me. So, you have to use thread tape not just thread sealant liquid to help get them in the right position and hope that the “not totally tight” seal you end up with works. It has so far but on the winter maintenance list are 4 new adjustable elbow fittings to do a Cornish “proper job”

Always something to do when you have a boat!