Holy Loch

After a cycle trip into Rothesay to raid the Co-op for fresh food (yes, that is the “big store” in the town) we paid our marina dues to the ever friendly Liz and prepared to depart. As soon as we had started the engine, two of the boatyard workers arrived to help with the lines. Wow. Maybe it was to have a chat / nose around too but no matter what the motivation, it was great service. It was spoilt only by the crew telling them she could manage just fine on her own thanks!

Of course, that didn’t stop a chat in which we learned that the Mount Stuart man was a little hard up having sold an estate (Dumfries Castle to Charlie Boy?) and investing the money (£52 mio?) in the Icelandic Bank just before it went pop. Ouch. Seems that he now lives as a tax exile in Switzerland so he cannot be totally broke.

We had to wriggle out of the marina berth and into the narrow fairway, being watched by everyone in the marina (and that includes the eider ducks). Luckily we managed that with no drama. One of the marina guys said to a berth holder who popped out of his boat to see what was attracting so much attention “it is just the big boat leaving”. So, we are now known as “The Big Boat”. Better not take her to Monaco where she might feel a little less impressive….

A nice flybridge trip up to Holy Loch with a few ferries and yachts around followed. Also two dolphins who (unusually) didn’t want to come and play in our bow wave. Normally we act as a dolphin magnet. They like the speed and shape of the Nordhavn bow wave and seem drawn to us so they can frolic about. Today, they just carried on past. Perhaps they were Scottish National Party dolphins and didn’t want to play with an English boat….

Toward point:

Passing Dunoon:

Into Holy Loch where the old US nuclear submarine base caused so many demonstrations during the cold war time:

Apparently the area used to host up to 4,000 US personnel and so when they closed the base down in 1992 there was a tiny weeny local recession.

We couldn’t find a good anchorage spot – they had all been filled with local mooring buoys. So, we ventured into the Holy Loch marina instead. Another lovely welcome and run down on the local area followed. A family owned marina with a real service ethic. Some south coast English marinas could learn a lot eg “sure, pop up and pay us when you want to leave”, “as you’ve been here for 4 days we will do it a bit cheaper for you”. The evening was a good (bad) one. We try to have one dry (alcohol free) day after two good (really meaning bad) days. This was a good (bad) day, a wine and TV chilled evening in the pilothouse enjoying the views of the loch too:

A Patrick thought – the 747 captain mentioned before (who wishes to remain anonymous of course so we will call him Colin as an alias) has made yet another good point. As Patrick is very opinionated and has “attitude”, perhaps he is actually Patricia??

OK feminists, no howls of protest. We are merely repeating the question here. We understand that you need to remove a feather and have it analysed to properly check the sex of a penguin. Patrick / Patricia doesn’t seem to have any feathers so we will take advice from the experts at the zoo when we visit Edinburgh next week. Watch this space for more, perhaps even slightly exciting, penguin news.  (Crew says, he’s a boy!)