Campbeltown to Tarbert

We planned to leave Campbeltown before the rain that was forecast started. We almost managed it.

It was a nice quiet departure with little wind and actually way less rain than the nice Met Office folks had promised. As we were being closely watched, we left the berth without touching the thrusters and turned in the harbour area. We had to show the onlookers that lardy old Nordhavn's handle properly.

Sorry to say but very few pictures for you as it was a bit grey and gloomy heading up alongside Arran. The route is below for you:

The first few miles were busy - dodging pot markers which were plentiful and sometimes large enough to see properly. The little ones with lots of green goo growing on them made pot spotting such fun.

As we headed up alongside Arran, we passed the fish farm area which was destroyed in the recent storms, see BBC report. We cannot imagine how the lice infested fish that escaped will get on breeding with the proper wild ones. As for the dead ones... The tidy up operation involved several vessels which we saw on the AIS although this is a rather poor picture of the screens:

The whole business of fish farming has been moaned about in here before so we will not go through the same complaints again. Grim in the extreme.

As we headed further north, so it got more and more threatening:

and then it rained. Lots. Particularly heavily as we entered Tarbert harbour and needed to be outside to tie the boat up. It does seem that Autumn has arrived.

After the deluge, we happily trotted out to the local shops and for a wander around the harbour area. Whilst the crew was enjoying the little Co-op and their traffic light entry system, the captain admired the approach taken by the tiny local butcher's shop:

If only it was legal.

Wandering around the bay we saw a sad looking Ocean 37 that had been dragged up a sad looking slipway:

How times change - when we had a little Seamaster 813 and then a Broom 30 based on the Thames we used to covet the bigger Broom boats. Folks with one of those really were in the lap of luxury (apart from the rather copious volumes of smoke the old Perkins engines chucked out after a while running at river speeds).

We always have loved the harbour area here:

and the views over the loch:

even at low tide:

(By the way, the buildings are not drunk, it is just a panoramic shot)

Saturday was fun, Sheila and Niall who have a house on the other side of the loch at Portavadie came over by ferry:

and we enjoyed a socially distanced lunch together and a catch up. Penny the dog seemed quite at home too:

and happy to hoover up anything on offer:

The captain was happy as his birthday present tally was doubled. Sheila and Niall kindly brought along some gin (he has no idea why people think he likes gin) and a wonderful painting of penguins (naturally), produced and signed by the very talented Sheila:

Patrick was sniffy about them, something about "they are not as cuddly as I am". Clearly he has a top penguin complex.

Some rambling thoughts: Having been in Wales, then England, then Northern Ireland and now Scotland the strange sitaution we have with different Covid rules in each county thanks to the devolved powers seemed to make no sense at all. e.g. Mask wearing was pretty well observed in England and Scotland, the Northern Irish folks were learning about it rather slowly after a recent introduction and the Welsh didn't have to. Who could meet up with whom, in what numbers and where was totally ignored by the folks we saw or totally misunderstood (OK, if we are feeling charitable that might be the cause). Bottom line is that the UK seems to need clear, universal, simple, enforced rules that can be enhanced by localised tighter measures if needed. Fat chance....