Back to Greenock (in good company)

We discovered that the hammerhead in Port Bannatyne is not a good place with a blustery NE wind. The waves curl around the breakwater and kind of slap against the aft portion of the hull. A little Peche Promenade lightweight French thing nearby was rolling around quite violently at times. We just heard the slap of the waves on the hull and moved a little.

We had ordered two new inverters to replace our pesky ones - getting them repaired would take a lot longer and as they are "getting on" like us, there is no guarantee that Victron would have the required circuit board available any longer. So, the thinking is to replace them both, take advantage of the 5 year warranty then during the winter get the old ones checked / repaired as possible then stick them on eBay as there seems to be quite a demand. We needed to be nearer to civilisation to get them and if required, to get some help in fitting them (might need battery cable changes and we certainly don't have the kit to crimp those huge cables!

Getting out of Port Bannatyne, when pinned on by the waves and wind and being restricted in manoeuvring space by the breakwater and shallows astern of us meant we had to use the thrusters for a change. Luckily, they still performed.

Heading back up towards Greenock, we were visited by an official RIB who came to have a look at the Nordhavn and waved happily. They broke off from escorting this submarine out to sea:

The good news is that nothing happened to the sub whilst the RIB guys were having a gawp.

Back in the same berth in James Watt Dock, it started to feel like home. This time there were no superyachts in residence, just way more interesting craft. The first was Chico, a Dunkirk little ship that runs holiday charters around the coast here:

See Chico's website for more info. She is very beautiful but once you get closer to the hull, you can see that some of the planking starts to look a bit "queer" - trouble with the frames perhaps? We fear that she will need some expensive intervention in the near future and hope that she generates enough income for the owners to afford her repairs. Would be sad to see the elegant lady broken up. When she left, trying to turn against the wind was hard for her - two engines but very close together don't help. She did sound wonderful though, thanks to the Gardner lumps inside her.

The second "classic" was Drum: 

For Duran Duran fans, you might recall how she nearly killed off Simon le Bon when she capsized in a Fastnet race and Simon was inside her, trapped. She lost her keel. This picture gives you an idea of what the rescue services found, some crew clinging to the hull (minus keel) and some trapped inside:

Following repairs, she competed in a round the world race so no lasting ill effects! She has been owned by the Arnold Clark group (huge Scottish motor group) for a while now and used for hospitality trips and to raise charity money. She does seem accident prone as she and a submarine had a coming together somewhere off the Mull of Kintyre later in her life. The Arnold Clark website says that her sailing days are over now and they hope to find a museum spot for her. If anyone wants a restoration challenge, this could be quite a good / expensive one.

Carradale to Bute and a big hike

Waking up in Carradale and gently swinging to the anchor is wonderful. The day started with some sun and gentle breezes again, the views remained as per yesterday. All was good (bar the sickly inverters). So, rather than head around the Mull of Kintyre on what would have been a perfect day to do so, we made some phone calls about Victron issues and troubleshooting and headed back to Port Bannatyne. The good news was that the inverters continued inverting quite happily - we like  a nice 240v supply underway for the fridge / freezer and engine room fans.

Despite all the space around us, the infrequent ferry that goes across to Lochranza on the isle of Arran made us divert a little:

Hardly a problem but it did wake up the helmsman for a while as did the views heading around to Port Bannatyne. We went onto our hammerhead again, trussed the boat up as well as possible considering the length of pontoon and number of cleats. Again, the inverters refused to recognise the 240v input from the shorepower. They haven't just got the hump with the genset it seems. They were duly bypassed and the battery charger used to keep the 24v supply going. It had one drawback - even with no other load on the shorepower, the surge as you switch the battery charger on tended to pop the shorepower breaker on the 16 amp shore supply around two times out of three meaning a walk onto the pontoon to reset it. It was sunny and warm(ish) so not a big deal.

Madness then set in. The following day we walked across the island in glorious sun to Ettrick Bay. En route you get to see the ruined church with an immaculate graveyard attached:

and then you make it to the beach. Wow, Arran in the distance, a few folks and their dogs (and one cat!) enjoying the beach but very quiet and very lovely:

After an average coffee and OK cake in the tearooms there we had to walk back to burn off some of the calories we had imbibed. A proper trip back in time, even the road signs are 1950 / 60's throwbacks:

but very elegant too.

Kames Castle looked impressive in large well kept grounds but the signs at the gatehouse made it abundantly clear that normal mortals were far from welcome there unless they were renting one of the holiday cottages:

We kept walking in case the gamekeeper was out with his shotgun. The views down the hill to the water were good though, you can play spot the Nordhavn again:

 and once more:

After a brief tea stop on board, true madness overtook us and we walked into Rothesay, had coffee and cake at Musiker again and then walked back. The Fitbit addicted crew reported around 26,000 steps. The disinterested captain reported a sore foot (first longer walk in FitFlops this year).

Maintenance news:

The captain did check that the 240v input was reaching the inverters OK, just in case something simple like a fuse or breaker had failed. Life is never that simple (or cheap) it seems. So, a Victron shopping list was compiled and prices sought.

Tarbert to Carradale

Whilst in Tarbert, we had a visit from the navy. Well, three of the horrid little plastic pretend patrol craft that they take unsuspecting university students out in. They populated the hammerheads in front and behind us:

Mooring, boat cleaning and departing the next morning seemed to involve a horde of people, lots of briefings and lots of shouting. As we mentioned before we need to up our game considerably and make everything more professional. Oh, they also like to start their very smoky engines and run them for ages at idle before leaving. We cannot answer the why question that is probably on your lips right now. Perhaps it is because they don't buy their own fuel or pay for the engine overhauls caused by idling big diesels from cold for ages?

After raiding the Co-op (probably the largest food shop we would see for several days) we departed too. Less ceremony and way less shouting.

The flybridge run down the side of the Isle of Arran was so pretty, warm, sunny, just the best. The three plastic navy craft were messing about (so it seemed) and then passed us. We guessed that they were heading for Campbeltown, as we were. A small visitors' pontoon there might be tight on space. Then we saw the training Ship Jack Petchey following us and their AIS said "Campbeltown" too. The crew rang the harbour chap, they agreed that things would be a bit busy there so we opted to anchor in Carradale Bay instead. A nicer place but 2 hours north from Campbeltown making our planned early start to go around the Mull of Kintyre the next day even earlier. Ho hum.

On the way, we saw a rare beast out of captivity - a Nordhavn 60, Annie M:

Avid readers of this stuff will have seen pictures of her predecessor (a 47 like ours) in Kip marina a few years ago. Owen the owner got the regulation Nordhavn wave and we exchanged pictures afterwards.

The Carradale anchorage was empty. Lovely. As we approached, so a pod of dolphins popped up around the boat - we reckon there were 12 of them but it was hard to keep count as they surfaced, breathed and did the odd tail flap. Beautiful. Our pictures are rubbish as they were taken on the phone camera at the same time as the captain was trying to drop the anchor:

Anyway, you get the idea. This is what the trip looks like to help you orientate yourselves:

 The views from the anchorage are spectacular:

You get to see Arran (the darker hills) and off to the south east but not in these pictures the Ailsa Craig plus the mainland. It was sunny and calm. Happy folks even when a tiny French yacht arrived to share the spot with us:

there is plenty of space for way more than 2 boats!

We settled down, fired up the genset, cooked a lovely dinner and afterwards decided it was coffee time. Then it got interesting again. Heading around the Mull to the anchorage off Gigha is on hold for a while at least.

Maintenance news:

Remember how we said that we would let you know about the misbehaving inverters. Well, they were working perfectly when underway and when we fired up the genset to cook dinner. A little later, when the genset was on again for coffee, they refused to recognise the mains power input from the genny and just stayed in inverter mode. This is a new game and not one that we like much. We didn't tinker with them as we want them to carry on "inverting" from the 24v batteries to keep the fridge / freezer running OK whilst at anchor or underway. Rebooting them might have caused other trouble! So, a while ago they went mad whilst working in bypass mode, then they refused to fire up and now they refuse to recognise incoming mains power.

Nothing more we can do, time to have them looked at or replace them, our trip to Gigha tomorrow and the lovely anchorage there will be postponed whilst we get this sorted out somehow.

Time to get an expert viewpoint, the problem will be in finding an expert - a call to the folks that the Victron man recommended is needed tomorrow morning....

Holy Loch to Tarbert then powerless

The forecast was good, the winds were light, the sun was due to make an appearance and the scenery around the Kyles of Bute was worth another look. So, we opted to head for another night in Tarbert before going further south. The option of anchoring off Mull was discarded as the forecast for the following day would mean being trapped on board.

We set off enjoying watching a sailing school boat doing circuits and bumps against the breakwater. The whole process seemed very intense and involved. We must try to be more serious and professional in future too. Casually casting the lines off and backing away from the breakwater seemed to lack a little drama in comparison and the skipper of the yacht was issuing way more commands than we ever manage. Time to sharpen up we think!

A flybridge run through the Kyles with some sun was lovely. Just lovely. Nothing else to add really, such a special area. Little cute lighthouses:

and impressive vistas:

The narrow channel around the top of Bute was negotiated:

and the run up Loch Fyne still amazes us with the depth so close to the shores:

Sorry for the messy picture - 150 metres under the keel and it topped out at 165. You can see that we were pretty close to the shore too from the plotter picture above.

As we arrived in Tarbert, we waved to a new contact, a man who lives in the harbour entrance area and who took some great pictures of us the last time we entered. Here is an example:

We are hoping for a few more as it is rare to get a picture when we are underway.

The nice harbour folks had arranged a hammerhead berth for us so mooring was simple enough. The harbourmaster's wife was looking after things in the office and we had an excellent welcome there too. Kind of like this place. Sadly, things went a bit south when we cooked dinner. Let's move on to

Maintenance news:

We mentioned how the inverters had thrown their toys out of the pram whilst in Portavadie. Well, they decided to do the same in Tarbert when the microwave was used. Not a high current drain compared to the dishwasher or a kettle which both run through the inverters so it seems to be a bit random. The story went something like:

• Inverter throws a wobbly, takes power from batteries when it should have plenty from the shore, flips to and from doing this, warning lights flash on for overload and voltage and everything under the sun. Inverters were only providing around 6 amps for the microwave at the time and should have been simply transferring this direct from the incoming supply.

• Restart them, works for a while then they throw another wobbly

• Cold restart - the Nordhavn folks fit a big switch that lets you connect the shorepower or genset power directly to the things that are normally fed by the inverters in case they go wrong. Inverters fully off. Power distributed OK. Batteries charged by our separate battery charger not the inverters for a while.

• Removed covers from inverters, checked all connections as you can't do much more. One 24v battery connection tightened a bit.  No picture of a naked inverter for the techno geeks this time as we were too busy trying to fix things to worry about the camera.

• Turned power back through the inverters. Dead as a dodo. Nowt, nothing. Would not fire up or even recognise mains power being fed to them. Tried the bypass switch a few times in case it was playing up. Still the same. Not a good moment. Switched shore power back directly to the panel as getting late, retired hurt. 

• The next morning, panel off the inverters again, nothing obvious, checked that there was power to them from the bypass switch and, for some reason, they both fired up but the remote control panel was dead. Inverters worked perfectly, charging the batteries and powering the sockets etc. Guessed that the remote panel was causing trouble - removed it, remade connections at the panel and the inverter, the remote panel fires up and the inverters have behaved since including a test with heavy use of the dishwasher. Has the problem been fixed? Not sure. Is there any more we can do? Probably not. We did contact Victron though and got the details of their Glasgow service agent in case. Time will tell......

Implants and Holy lunching

After our guest departed, the Captain decided to follow suit - he had to visit the nice dentist man to have the new tooth fitted to the implant that has been settling in place in his jaw for a while now.  Getting there involved the much loathed Flymaybe. Just to keep the (ex) Capt Rae happy, here is the mode of transport - less ugly than the ATR he hated but equally noisy and even more cramped inside:

He had a most pleasant wait at Southampton airport before the flight back thanks to a visit from Anne and Izzy:

The captain duly returned with a full complement of teeth and a happy feeling, hoping that there were no more dentist visits for a while. Back in the delightful Greenock (actually that is not fair, James Watt Dock is fine and the folks there are great) we had an excellent evening together with Sheila and Niall (the folks who own a house at Portavadie) when they joined us on board for dinner. We then had a less than excellent time walking in to Greenock for some last bits of fresh food before we headed off with no grand plans other than "head south around the Mull and then head north". Just slowly.

The first port of call was to be Holy Loch. You can guess why. Before we departed Greenock we had a strange moment. It looked for all the world as if Izzy the cockapoo had got onto a plane from Southampton and was running down the pontoon:

We discovered that not only was Bee about the same size, colour and age she had identical cute mannerisms too.

Leaving Greenock we were delayed by a feeder container ship that was swinging before berthing at Clydeport:

The liner is the antique (1972) Black Watch. One of Fred Olsen's finest.....

Holy Loch was visited again because you can walk to Livingstone's restaurant in Dunoon. An excellent if rather large lunch was duly enjoyed there - you feel that you deserve it after the walk somehow even if it led to a food coma that evening.

We were a little confused about (ex) Capt Rae's movements though. We saw that he had departed Whitehaven and then followed this track:

Was this a test run after some repairs? Was it the result of a very confused navigation system on board or a very confused navigator? We await feedback from the skipper but remain worried about him.

Back to Greenock to wave off our guest

All good things come to and end as they say. Bad things too of course. Anne having to fly home could be categorised either way depending upon your viewpoint. This meant leaving the tricky berth in Holy Loch and going back to James Watt Dock so that she has an easy(ish) connection to Glasgow airport. More on the (ish) later.

As we departed our walkway berth, heads popped out of boats like rabbits out of holes, their level of concern was directly related to how close to us they were berthed. Determined to show that lardy single screw Nordhavns are not that dangerous, we slipped the lines, wriggled out and backed up the fairway between the pontoons without touching the thrusters. It was a matter of pride.

Luckily the weather held for a flybridge run across to Greenock and back onto "our berth" in James Watt Dock, another huge ocean voyage:

 The obscene superyacht Fountainhead had gone. Only the much prettier Lady Rose remained. Wonder what their berthing invoice will look like? On the way, another liner was gracing Clydeport:

or maybe not gracing. Not the best looking one we've come across.

We had an old lifeboat thread going on here a while ago and can now add to it. This guy is on the hard standing and is being given a major make-over and repaint by some dedicated folks:

This one was converted for pleasure use and still looks good despite the conversion work:

She is rare too - only 3 of them were built. For the insanely curious, have a look at Clyde class lifeboats as she is very different to most RNLI craft that you will be used to.


Anne was duly escorted to Paisley Gilmour street station as we could not trust her to get the right train / get the right bus afterwards / stay awake en route. We duly watched her get on the bus to the airport hoping she could manage the getting off bit. Transport to Glasgow airport from the west is rubbish on a Sunday - hence the (ish) comment. One train an hour and one bus an hour from Paisley too. Only the connection time is 4 minutes. Luckily the train was on time and the bus was fashionably late. Public transport connections indeed. The Captain had the pleasure of the opinion of some locals about the bus service too. They used words we would not put in here, in an accent that is impossible to type. McGills are not popular around here as a bus operator it seems.

Enjoying the Kyles once more

Escaping from the overpriced and overrated Portavadie, we pottered back around the Kyles of Bute to Holy Loch:

Why Holy Loch again? Well, it is a lovely spot, the folks there are great and this time we would be able to walk into Dunoon on a day that Livingstone's restaurant was actually open.

We had a gentle trip back around the Kyles of Bute once more lapping up the scenery.  Well, the captain did:

This modern generation and their smartphones.....

We passed this little headland and although the picture does not look at all interesting we have to include it here:

because it is the rather strangely named Rubha Dubh. For non native Scots, you don't pronounce it rub a dub though, with all the old connotations involved about three men in a tub.

We also felt for the good citizens of Tignabruaich. One of their number wanted to be a little too individual for our taste and painted his house in a strange bright pastel blue colour:

In reality it looks way worse than in this picture. The unusual colour made it stick out like the proverbial sore thumb in amongst the stone or white buildings in what is, mainly, a pretty village. Must be an incomer.....

Arriving at Holy Loch there was clearly something going on in the office. We called the marina on the VHF, got no reply. Tried again, got a response. Asked them if it was OK to pick a berth on the inside of their breakwater as usual - no response. Tried calling again, no response. Had the hopeless Portavadie management taken over we wondered? Anyway, we duly popped into a free space, trussed the boat up and the crew headed up to the office to make contact with the natives and pay.

Only they had a rally (known as a "muster" in Scotland) going on and so they wanted to move us. We then wriggled our way onto a berth between two pontoons alongside the main walkway. Getting in was fine, getting out might prove more challenging especially if the wind picks up.

That evening, the mad Anne wanted to go and scale the nearby hills. She has some strange disease that makes her a compulsive hill climber. We joined in for the easier start of the walk and retired before the midges came out to play:

Despite the morning drizzle, we all braved the walk around to Dunoon, the thought of an open Livingstone's restaurant spurring us on. The walk was worth it - an excellent and very relaxed lunch was enjoyed. Then we showed Anne the less enjoyable rest of Dunoon. Actually there was a fund-raiser going on for the paddle steamer Waverley down on the pier. You might have seen pictures of her in here before. Well, she needs new boilers and they are not cheap so she is out of service until the money is raised. See Waverley website. Sad indeed, she looks so at home plying up and "doon the watter"

The height addicted Anne walked back over the hills to Holy Loch marina. The comfort addicted captain and crew raided Morrisons and then got a taxi as there was too much to take on a bus (not that there are hundreds of those either). That evening, we damaged a rather wonderful bottle of Samos Doux dessert wine that Pat and Graham had given us:

We probably damaged our livers a little as well.

Tarbert, the Kyles and treatment (of the good sort)

Although it is tempting to stay and spend money with the lovely Port Bannatyne folks, we felt that Anne should see more of the area. Initially she accomplished this all alone by going for a morning run around the waterside. Upon return, we headed off and around the pretty Kyles of Bute. A flybridge trip, not that sunny but not too chilly either, to enjoy the wonderful views. For the first time ever, the (slightly oversized for the traffic) ferry that goes across to the mainland didn't pull out in front of us either:

Somehow the trip around Bute never tires. Just such a pretty spot with ever changing views. We ended up in Tarbert and went for a wander up past the ruined castle and into the hills:

Where you get to enjoy a proper view of the harbour area:

If you are really bored, play spot the Nordhavn. Anne and the crew seemed in good form and there were no signs of altitude sickness:

The following day, we were supposed to have the delights of pouring rain for most of the time. Hence, the crew and Anne booked themselves into the Spa at Port Bannatyne (we hasten to add that there was an offer on the go, nothing gets bought from there at full price!) As morning dawned, so did the sun. The Captain is sure that they faked the forecast they showed him on screen just before booking. Anyway, we made the monster sea voyage across to the strange place. The crew had tried to ring and book a mooring, was told the marina was busy, left a message that was never returned. Calling them on the radio as we arrived elicited no reply, then eventually a very broken transmission from someone with a thick eastern European accent. It made little sense but we knew where to berth anyway. For such a supposed "up market" operation they continue to be shambolic in the way they run things considering how much they charge.... However, the treatments were excellent according to those who benefited from them.

Maintenance news:

Well, not really maintenance more troubleshooting. Whilst at Portavadie we needed to run the dishwasher. This is fed power via the inverters and since we were plugged in, the required 10 amps or so should have been passed through from the shore supply to the dishwasher. Only when the captain looked at the inverter panel it wasn't showing any of the the normal light patterns:

(This one says it is charging in absorption mode quite happily)

Instead it was suggesting that it was also using around 30 amps from the 24 volt battery supply to make up the 10 amps of 240v power required. Changing the settings on the panel to allow the inverters to take more power from the shore didn't seem to increase the amount being drawn (only 8 amps or were coming from the 16 amp supply). Then they went a bit crazy with a small light show - the overload, overheat warning lights came on, went off and the inverters generally went pretty crazy. Hum, they are expensive bits of kit, getting old now of course and so we feared the worst. A "warm boot" by turning them off and restarting them worked briefly then the same problem occurred. We have two inverters linked together like this one:

So, the captain turned off all the power on board, both AC and DC, bypassed them and just fed the shorepower directly to the panel using the inbuilt changeover switch. This gave inverters their first rest and "cold boot" since the batteries were renewed over a year ago. Once the dishwasher finished, the power was re-established via the inverters and they behaved normally, running similar loads like a kettle with no trouble. Are they OK? Not sure, they will get carefully monitored and once our guest has gone we will go "dead ship" with no 240v or 24v power to allow the captain to check the tightness of all the inverter and battery bank connections. Not much more we can do realistically.

Fingers are crossed that they are happy again after the cold start - perhaps they get bored. We will let you know. Our bank manager is also hoping that all is well with them. 

Invasion and Port Bannatyne

After such a nice quiet time, things had to change. Indeed they did with the arrival of Anne (better known as Izzy's mum) at Glasgow airport courtesy of Flymaybe. Anne did ask the airline how much it would cost to fly Izzy up too - the answer of around £1,000 seemed a bit steep so she stayed in Fair Oak much to our dismay....

As a bit of a caffeine addict, she needed an injection upon arrival. The airport Starbucks had a trainee barista at work who managed to prepare Anne a quite phallic flat white:

Anne managed to consume it though.

Then she had to contend with the bus ride from the airport to Paisley. Paisley itself is nothing to get excited about. The bus however - well, it goes through a really up market housing area on the way to the train station. We often wonder what the Scottish tourist board think about welcoming folks to the area that way. We reckon that a few visitors might want to turn right around and head back. Like several UK airports, the link to the train network is poor.

Back on board we forced ourselves to walk to Greenock and Mr Morrison's supermarket as it is the last sizeable one we will see all week. Fresh stuff and chocolate were needed.

The next morning dawned a little less bright and we enjoyed some hefty showers on the way to the Isle of Bute and our stopping spot in Port Bannatyne. A gentle little run:

The folks in Port Bannatyne are always so friendly - you just want the place to succeed. We were on a hammerhead but it is a tiny one and moving the boat so it doesn't obstruct the fairway to the other (yes, there are only two) pontoon is tricky. A wander into Rothesay and around the town was most civilised, as was doing the tourist thing and having and ice cream on the way back. We reckon we doubled the profits of the kiosk man that day after all the early rain. The evening / sunset view from the berth was stunningly beautiful:

Quite a special time.

As Anne had never visited Bute before, we just had to take her to Mount Stuart, our all time favourite country house. The West Coast Motors bus ride is in pence per mile probably as stupidly expensive as the trip from our house in Hythe Marina to Southampton. Much much prettier though. As the sun was a wall to wall thing (whilst the south of the country was getting a deluge!) the interior was shown off in full glory:

The outside isn't bad either;

and there is even an ideal place for Izzy:

Only she wasn't there and so couldn't.

Upon the return we had to get off the bus in Rothesay and explore a little clothes shop where the ladies tried on innumerable items and the captain heard the life story of the assistant. Some of us enjoyed that bit. An excellent coffee and cake stop in Musiker (try it, vegan cafe / bistro with good coffee) then a wander back to Port Bannatyne rounded off a great day.