Port Ellen to Ballycastle

You know how sometimes things just seem impossible but then work out for the best? Yup, It was that kind of day.

We knew that the Port Ellen anchorage would get very unpleasant tomorrow as the wind swung round to a brisk southerly. So, we planned to head over to Northern Ireland and wanted to try and visit Ballycastle, hidden behind Rathlin Island. Why? Because we'd never been there and didn't know that part of the coastline at all well. Why did it seem impossible? Well, the harbour there is pretty small (just over 70 berths and most of them are small ones). We knew that because of the strong tides and overfalls around Rathlin, we ought to leave Port Ellen about 9am so we arrived at slack water.

The difficulty? Well, Ballycastle is a council run operation. They tend to have short office hours and we didn't want to head over there in the hope that there was some space. Anchoring off was not an option owing to the weather. So, we tried calling them about 8:30 am. No reply. Same game just after 9. We decided to prepare for the off and just before we weighed the anchor (for the non English speakers that means winched it up!) we had a call back from the Ballycastle harbour master who said there was a spot big enough for us. Excellent news.

The anchor came up with a ton and a half of weed attached. Minor issue for the captain, a slightly larger one for the crew who had to clear it all. The trip across to Northern Ireland is an interesting one. You see the islands of Islay and Jura behind you. Slightly to one side, you see Gigha island and then the Mull of Kintyre (Scottish mainland). Ahead, you see Rathlin Island and the coast of Northern Ireland. To starboard you see County Donegal which is part of Ireland. You also get glimpses of the Mull of Galloway / Stranraer area. This is how the PC navigation system sees it all:

Or at least that is how the camera saw the PC navigation system in the hands of a photographer who despite the lack of alcohol could not get a level picture.....

Perhaps this is better, it also shows the pesky little Traffic Separation scheme area (the purple bit) that messes up direct courses sometimes:

So, lots of countries / islands to admire during a trip of under 30 miles. The trip is across an area with strong tidal flows too - lots of water has to get between Northern Ireland and the Mull of Kintyre each tide and it does it by flowing fast.... Luckily it was neap tide time. Amazingly we saw no big commercial ships, just one on the AIS plot. It was all very quiet bar a few fishing boats (and of course, Calmac ferries don't come to annoy us this far south!) The weather was grey and gloomy one minute, then sunny, then foreboding. Here is the view across from our position above to the Mull of Kintyre which was looking moody under some cloud:

The north-west fresh wind meant that the further away from Islay we travelled, the bumpier the sea got. About half way across we needed to wake up the stabilisers. The waves were coming on our stern quarter and that is one of the least comfortable directions, causing the boat to corkscrew across them a bit and the crew objects to this motion for some reason. Still, the stabilisers sorted that out.

As we approached Rathlin Island, the tidal flow around it slowed us down by a knot and a half, then we got the back eddy from the island and had 2 knots help even though it was "almost" slack water. Here is the lighthouse on the west side together with the wildlife observatory:

Between Rathlin and the coast, the stream runs pretty fast and it was nice and bumpy - the stabilisers had to work harder - kind of aerobics for them. Luckily they didn't run out of puff.... Nice views of the island and the rock formations in the sun though:

We called Ballycastle as instructed and guess what, there was no reply but again they called back quickly and allocated us a nice spot on a hammerhead. The entrance and harbour are very small and space is tight - one of the harbour assistants came to take our lines and so it was a matter of pride to spin the boat around and onto the berth with no thruster use. Good practice!

Suitably settled in, we had another "Norn Iron" welcome. So like Bangor last year. Brian, the man who owns a lovely "hard as nails" Redbay RIB moored next to us chatted happily, showed us his lovely new boat and offered a trip out over the weekend so we could see that she is as good as she looks out to sea. Have a look Redbay article for info on this particular boat - it is kind of the fast boat equivalent of our Nordhavn - looks the part and unlike many boats, it is the part as well. Looking forward to playing with something that can do 38 knots instead of our 6.5.

To help you feel at home and understand the linguistic and cultural challenges the crew faced, try this lesson on Northern Ireland language use but don't play it loudly at work or in front of delicate people....