Bute to Troon to Campbeltown

We left Bute in lovely calm conditions, just grey and gloomy. Scottish summer had been restored.

The run down to Troon took around 4 hours in very calm conditions but with the nice grey tint to everything around us. Here is the tint applied to the little lighthouse on Little Cumbrae island:

and now to the Calmac ferry leaving Ardrossan:

Smart ferry, leaving Ardrossan is the best thing to do there (unless you want some Asda shopping).

We arrived in Troon just as the rain started. Great timing. It was just after low water too and there is not lots to spare as you nose into the marina area. Our Troon time was spent raiding Morrisons for all the things you cannot get in a little Co-op shop, wandering around the seafront in some lovely sunny periods and generally relaxing. The plan was to head for Campbeltown, departing around breakfast time so we could arrive just after lunch (34 nautical miles or so) and use it as a jumping off spot for a trip around the Mull of Kintyre where you need sensible weather and proper timing for the tides.

Guess what, as we headed off, it started raining. Kind of a theme building here. The trip is simple enough:

the views were not that great, in fact as the drizzle set in and the cloud / murk got thicker, it became a workout for the radar:

Plenty of fishing vessels plying up and down, very little leisure traffic about. The murk cleared as we passed Pladda (island off the southern trip of Arran) - we think it did so just to let us add another lighthouse picture for your enjoyment (or boredom):

Then it was radar back on until about 2 miles off Campbeltown Loch entrance. Davarr island, on the south of the loch entrance, has a little lighthouse too so this grey image of it is because we felt we had to:

As we approached the mooring pontoon we saw that there was space on the end of it - probably because we had seen 4 yachts departing as we headed in. Perfect timing! Callum the every friendly and helpful moorings man came to assist with the lines and told us about how the plastic navy behaved when they beat us to the place a while ago. So glad we were not in here with them....

An old fishing trawler made us think about what owners do to scrap them. This old girl looked very sad:

Love the squashed car tyre hanging as a token fender. Close up, she has other issues:

Quite a restoration project if anyone fancies turning her into a liveaboard cruiser... According to the harbour man (the great guy called Callum) she has been laid up for over 2 years now, her licence (and hence quota) has been sold but it could cost up to £20K to have her cut up and disposed of. Quite some bonfire.

Just chilling.... only it was warm

After a week in Tarbert enjoying the beautiful harbour and dodgy Co-op fresh food, we thought it was time to move on. We paid the harbourmaster's wife (lovely lady) and didn't have the chance to ask the strange English guy why we had upset him or why we got his "treatment". As it was still forecast to be pretty windy, we decided to hide in Port Bannatyne for a couple of nights because we love it there before heading south, ready to head north. Confusing, isn't it.

Arriving in Bute we dug out the folding bikes and headed into Rothesay for a wander around. It was easy to work out where we were:

We've always admired this building:

and its location high above the bay. We contemplated a lunch sitting on their terrace to enjoy the views but then we read the reviews of the food online and thought better of it. Shame, lovely building, stunning setting.

We had to revisit the great Musiker bistro / cafe place and partake in a coffee/ cake break. We also wandered around the castle - especially as our membership of Cadw (Welsh Heritage) give us free access. Why Welsh Heritage? Well, it is a lot cheaper then English heritage to join and you get reciprocal visiting rights so why not?

Like many castles, it is under repair / restoration:

but unlike many, it is right in the town and so the views from the walls are unusual:

Another difference was that the great room was hosting a wedding so we had to wait for them to become spliced before we could see the interior:

Upsetting; although we were the only non wedding guests around they didn't find a couple of spare glasses for us. Later we saw that they were quaffing cheap Cava so we felt better at being missed out. In true Scots fashion they had a piper, but as soon as the happy (we assume) couple appeared, he sprinted down the steps and vanished. Perhaps he doesn't like cheap Cava either or maybe he had a second wedding to attend:

The friendly Scottish Heritage guy at the entrance warned us that there were lots of seagulls around who were "fractious". He wasn't kidding! We escaped unpecked and without any poo on us luckily.

We do like Bute. Even though it was way busier than normal thanks to "Butefest" at the weekend. A big music event down at Ettrick Bay (see earlier posts for images of that) with "Big Country" headlining it. They even run special buses from the ferry terminal. OK, maybe the acts are not on the scale of  Glastonbury but Bute is a small island after all.

Hiding away and fixing things when it was wet and windy and weeping

Wet and windy indeed. Here is the windy bit and why we decided to remove the bimini cover just in case because initially there were F9 gusts in the forecast:

What about the rain? Well, the Sunday forecast was pretty conclusive:

and that was going to carry on through to Monday evening too:

Not at all tempting.

What keeps you amused when it is that miserable? Gin perhaps? Oh no, instead the wing engine was dismembered:

and treated to a small session of valve gear adjustment:

Who needs alcohol when there are other fun thing like this to do?

We did treat ourselves to lunch at the remarkably good value Anchor Hotel on one slightly less soggy day. Plenty of trips to the Co-op for fresh stuff too, only their idea of fresh and ours was not quite the same. If we saw things with a "best before" date a couple of days away, it was a treat. Some of the stuff on the shelves was already rotting. Seems that the fresh produce either gets horribly delayed on its way there, gets a battering on the poor roads or perhaps the Co-op singles out Tarbert as the place to ship all the soft / mouldy stuff to?

Now for the weeping bit of the title. The captain went to check the belt tension on the genset after fitting a new coolant pump to it earlier this year and to add some paint to areas he had put some "primer" on.  All was well, but he spotted that the thermostat cover was weeping a little, there was a trace of wetness (coolant) underneath it. The bad news was that it had to be fixed as directly underneath it lives the alternator. Alternators and coolant - not a match made in heaven.

We have ranted on many times about the massively stupid positioning of the genset which is too far aft so you cannot get behind it to reach things. Guess what, the thermostat cover is on the wrong side and wrong end of the genset for access. Had it been the wing engine that had such a weep, it would have been very simple to access it. Instead, the captain pushed himself against the two bulkhead mounted water strainers and manfully accepted the pain. OK, there might have been a little moaning.

You can see the bits of corrosion under the cover plate.  Getting the plate off is easy enough, as is removing the thermostat. Scraping the remains of the gently cooked gasket from the side of the manifold working almost blind was not. To get to see the thing involved more physical pain as you have to lay on both water strainers. The resulting bruises were impressive.

Without the cover and thermostat, duly cleaned up:

As the thermostat was out, we treated the genset to a new one - no desire to repeat this performance soon! We had a gasket and thermostat in our spares and even better, a can of gasket remover which really helped to free the baked on stuff which was hard to reach and hence apply any pressure to with a scraper. The cleaned up cover and thermostats, showing the new one sitting on the spring ready to go into the engine:

A thin smear of blue Hylomar gasket sealant on the new gasket just to "be sure to be sure" and rebuilt, then refilled with coolant and the first coat of paint too:

No more weeping, well just a little as the captain unwound his body and headed for the shower. We would love to get hold of the idiot who mounted the genset so far aft and force him / her to work on the outboard side of the thing. It would be so sweet....

A small gin helped afterwards.

Traditional boat festival time

The turnout for the festival was not huge, apart from a "muster" (or rally for the English readers) of Fisher motorsailers:

There were a few nice timber yachts and MFV conversions, a few needing some TLC and a few that were basically floating piles of rotting timber.  This one was lovely:

The weather was kind, folks came down onto the pontoons to see the boats (we had several visitors wanting to look at the less than traditional Nordhavn) and were in generally good mood. We cannot comment on the mood of the English accented harbour guy who was on duty to manage the influx of visitors that did not materialise.

To take advantage of the sun and warmth, before the predicted full day of rain and gales, we walked around the harbour, along a lovely woodland path with great views:

and up to Port Ban (White shore beach). Great spot. Very relaxing indeed:

The beach had some remains of what once might have been a deer:

kind of strewn about:

When we saw this proof of human BBQ activity (and how disgusting we are as a race in not taking our refuse away afterwards) we did wonder what they had cooked:

Back in town, the greasy pole competition was in full swing. Some of the younger inhabitants were trying to edge their way along an old flagpole which was covered in thick detergent with a drop into the harbour itself:

This lad did well, managing to get to the end but then he had to remove a beer bottle from the fitting which proved impossible despite lots of shouted advice and encouragement from the shore:

He was not at all impressed when he was called a Jessie by a relative. Eventually something had to give as he became more and more tired:

You can work out what happened next. The ceilidh went on until the small hours, we didn't.

Huge ocean voyage then some maintenance

We awoke pretty early and were delighted to sense that the weather forecast was right. The 30 knot gusts had died down. The decision to escape Portavadie Marina and head over to Tarbert pretty much straight away was an easy one, before the promised force 7's again - then we found that it was nearly low water which restricted our turning space even more. Needs must and all that so some bow thruster action was needed to encourage the bow around and through the wind. The visitor pontoon area there is really pretty horrid to access / escape from in blowy conditions. Not a lot of room to turn a boat of our size when alongside the north of the long walkway:

and a slalom around the end of it / some buoys marking where stones have fallen into the marina from the bank. They could just get them removed...

After the monster run over to Tarbert, arriving before the office was open, we sneaked onto a hammerhead we had used before as the one we had been allocated was busy. Once the office reopened we checked that a week there would be possible with a very helpful friendly young lady. She felt the urge to check with the one "less helpful" harbour person. We have to report that he had an English accent too. Very polite and well spoken but clearly we were a nuisance for some unfathomable reason. The girl said that our hammerhead was free for ages into the future (booking sheets were empty!) The chap was about to say that he wanted to move us so we went for the presumptive close approach with "great, we will stay there then". Man looked crestfallen but tried to unsettle us with "it is the traditional boat festival weekend coming up you know and so you might have someone rafting on you". Another sad look when we said fine. We had seen the weather forecasts, no way was the harbour going to be that busy!  Then "you will need to be at one end of the pontoon so we can put someone else in there next to you". Delightedly we told him that we already were. He retired to the back office having failed in his mission to spread misery.

Such a shame, everyone else was very welcoming, helpful and happy to have us in their beautiful harbour area. When we check out we will ask him what we did to upset him (apart from exist perhaps?)

Maintenance news:

For some unfathomable reason, the captain decided to treat the main engine to a new multi-V drive belt. The one that operates the water pump and domestic alternator. The "v's" were starting to look less pronounced and as the belt was 6 years old and had done 1900 hours, it felt like time (there is no fixed schedule recommended in the manuals or by Lugger Bob the engine guru / technical trainer)

Because of the installation with a coolant hose running across the front of the engine, this is tricky. You can remove one belt guard, loosen off the other two and pop off the belt from the small alternator:

You can see the offending coolant hose in the picture above. Draining the coolant and removing the hose is way too complex / time consuming. So, then you have to feed the new Multi-V through the remaining bottom cover which just needs some patience. We like getting the new one in place before removing the old belt just in case... You never know. Here is the new belt waiting to be swapped over:

The crew had her spinach and manfully (womanfully?) used a long bar to pull the tensioner back and let the captain feed the old belt out of and then the new one into position.

Should be good for a few more hours now.

Sheila and Niall go boating, so do we

Whilst in Tarbert, we had a big Nordhavn visitor arrive on the nearby hammerhead berth:

She is Trisheen of Bute and you should have seen her in here before. Once when underway and then when we visited to look at her with Alex and Gisele. The current owners came (by RIB!) for a chat before they left to head home.

Who are Sheila and Niall? Well, you've met them before. The folks with the lovely house in Portavadie. They had foolishly agreed to join us for a boat trip. Their first boating excursion in the area, although they have some canoes / kayaks that they explore the waters nearby with. So, we headed over to Portavadie, dropped off the old inverters in their garage as they did rather take over the spare cabin and then headed around the Kyles to let them see their home waters from a different perspective. Thankfully it was a glorious sunny day. This time on the track you can see the lunchtime stop in Wreck Bay by the Burnt Islands:

The spot is a favourite, the views are way better than this panorama depicts:

one of the best anchorages around this area. With little wind and plenty of sun we had a most relaxed flybridge lunch before heading off to another favourite place, Port Bannatyne on Bute. Naill was the helmsman for the day and his stress levels were not too high (we think):

or if they were he hid that very well, looking most professional:

 but perhaps more relaxed when at anchor:

Sheila on the other hand had the casual look about it all:

even when at the helm:

The return run was in very different conditions - rain and wind time to rudely interrupt what had been a lovely few days. With the wind taking some nice waves into the entrance at Portavadie we had to take a nice run at it, then do the slalom around the pontoon and buoys and force the boat alongside the pontoon which the wind was determined that we would not achieve. Our plan to leave later that afternoon was thwarted by the wind and lack of turning space. The wind refused to drop so a night there followed.

Oily times and back to Tarbert

As we have a vague "old lifeboat" theme going on here, we ought to show you the launch of the refurbished "Robert", she is heading back to Ireland where she was based ready for the anniversary of the infamous 1979 Fastnet race when many yachts were in trouble and she was on service and saved two of them:

So, what have we been up to? Well, we headed over to Holy Loch for the inverter swap as you have seen before. Whilst there all three of the engine room motors (main, wing and genset) got their mid-season oil and filter changes. Easy enough with the built in pump. Then, with functioning inverters again,  we had a nice trip around to Tarbert where we met up with a Norn Iron couple, Keith and Julie in their yacht Scotia. Poor yacht. She started with the 4 of us on board, then other friends of theirs arrived to make it 6 Norn Iron folks plus us. Then two Scottish folks from a nearby yacht joined in too. The cockpit was very very full, the night was very very late and the craic was getting louder and louder in true Norn Iron style. Keith changed appearance during the evening from the suave, handsome man we all know and love (or lust after in the case of a few blog readers):

into a strangely headed "thing":

We are still wondering why a horse's head is kept on board. We have plenty of strange things but not that. Perhaps we are missing out? Anyway, a really good couple of evenings were enjoyed with them. We launched the RIB and Keith went and played hooligan with it. The steering had become very stiff so the (rather guilty) captain took it to pieces and tried to remove some of the old hardened grease from the steering cable / tube:

It was significantly better afterwards but we need something like a gun barrel cleaner to get the old gunge out properly. Another winter job for the list.

In Tarbert, there was a very strange bi-annual Viking festival going on:

with replica boats being rowed around. To us it looked like an excuse for folks with long unkempt straggly beards to dress up in strange gear, get away without having a shower and look important. A most random event but one that attracted plenty of spectators in the lovely sunny weather. The Scottish tourist board were there with a van dressed up as a typical highland "Hairy coo":

The rather bored looking guy was trying to get people to visit Scotland (they were already there?) and to get folks to enter a free draw. The crew did and later on found that she had won a "Hairy coo" print from some semi-famous local artist. Frankly, we think that Ruth's painting was better but beggars and choosers and all that....