Campbeltown to Bangor (Northern Ireland)

You know hope the tides sometimes conspire to force early morning starts? Well, this was another one of them. 5:30am alarm so we could be off after waking up with some tea by 6am. A couple of yachts headed out with us, doing the same tidal thing so we were not alone. One benefit of the early start was seeing the sun breaking through the clouds as we headed out of Campbeltown Loch:

and making some impressive patterns:

The idea of this silly start time is to take the last of the tide south down the side of the Mull of Kintyre, then avoid the nasty current that runs around the Mull at the bottom before it builds up and to take the flood tide all the way down to Bangor in Northern Ireland. The length of the trip (47 nautical miles or so) just about lets us do that at our economical 1450rpm cruise speed. A real "three waypoint" trip as you can see:

There had been a consistent NW'ly wind for a while and that was continuing with force 5 gusts. That had dragged up a bit of a wave pattern reaching around 2m high or so in the roughest bits. As this was on the stern quarter, our stabilisers were busy and in turn the autopilot was busy keeping the boat heading in roughly the right direction, fighting the stabiliser effect. Nothing dramatic though, we still managed a nice calm trip.

Heading past Sanda Island (the little "dot" to the SE of the Mull of Kintyre on the route image above), we needed our one course alteration of the trip. A little fish farm support ship was determined to make life difficult. Each time we did the "clear course alteration" to give him sea room, starting around 3 miles off, he altered course towards us again. Not very seamanlike but the guy at the helm clearly did not care. He has a route set and would keep following it no matter if a little trawler yacht was nearby (not that we would push that point!).  It wasn't even a pretty thing to look at as it passed by half a mile distant.

This is how our plotter saw the ship:

and our little course alteration. 

We thought that things were not too bad out to sea, there was one "Pan Pan" radio call from a yacht who had lost steering and was determined to tell the coastguard all about what had happened rather than giving them his position straight away. We heard the patient but irritated coastguard finally get a position from the solo sailor and say that they had arranged a lifeboat launch. Later on we saw this post from the Redbay lifeboat:

Difficult conditions, rough sea, strong winds? We reckon they overstated that a bit as it was pretty calm by the time we got to the Northern Ireland coast

As for our trip, we just headed down to Bangor, called them on the radio and were given a nice hammerhead berth, This was good for the crew with a recovering back as the fenders on the port side were not needed. Well, I say good not excellent as she had already rigged two of them. Such is life.

Awaiting us on the pontoon were Ken and his daughter Annika so we had expert help securing our lines and even better, they delivered some pastries too. Welcome to Norn Iron indeed. 

The trip took around 7.5 hours overall at 1450 rpm, there was some sun (rare this year) but still no dolphins. 

Maintenance News:

The big Lugger ran quite happily as did the nav gear. We had gone wild and updated our electronic charts whilst in Campbeltown. However, only on the navigation PC and the "stand alone" laptop that we use sometimes for route planning. The update process on our Furuno black box is easy enough but if we did that we would have to update the little plotter on the flybridge at the same time. That involves taking the "navpod" it is fitted into apart to access the SD card slot in the back of the plotter. It seemed like too much "fun" just for the chart update so we are saving that until we are back in Penarth.

There is an operating system and software update also available for the Furuno gear and it makes sense to do the whole lot when the navpod is apart. We didn't want to tempt the gods of failed IT updates by doing this rather bigger change in Campbeltown when we want the kit to work for a few more trips in 2022!!

Tarbert to Campbeltown

The crew's back had recovered suitably so we thought that we would venture a little trip out. Although Lochranza was very tempting (gentle winds from the SE so perfectly sheltered), the thought of getting the crew into the dinghy and ashore for little walks was not so good. In the interests of a continued recovery, we opted for Campbletown.

The ever helpful Callum (the moorings man there) said that they would have some space for us and that he would "put out the cones". Made us feel very important indeed.

A simple little trip, heading back down the Kintyre peninsular:

Although Tarbert looks a bit overcast as we left:

there was a slightly less grey cloudbank in the other direction:

The sun came out and we were (shock, horror) too hot on the flybridge. A first this year but a welcome one. The lack of wind contributed to this as you can see:

A whole 1.6 knots to contend with initially. Wild conditions out there as you can imagine. As the sky cleared a little so it got warmer but the normal cloudbank over the Isle of Arran's mountains continued to add a more threatening look to the place:

This time we didn't have to wait for the little ferry and we saw only one other yacht heading north. Guess what - under engine. As we approached the south end of Arran, so the Ailsa Craig "lump" was way more visible than it had been on the way up when it made only a fleeting appearance through the mist and murk:

Heading into Campbeltown loch, the wind freshened to a whole 16 knots. Yes, it was a wild day. The little lighthouse in Davaar island beckons you in:

and sure enough, we had a coned off area to berth in, just astern of the lifeboat which was temporarily using the pontoon whilst she had some improvements to her quay area. Again, quite reassuring. Until she started up the next evening to go out on a practice and we were gassed out for a few minutes that is. Those big diesels do like to smoke when cold. It struck us that at current fuel prices, our monthly RNLI subscription was probably burnt up before they left the mooring and they kindly delivered most of it to us in fumes! This was our view aft:

The crew continued to recover so we ventured out for slightly longer walks each day. The area around the loch is so pretty:

it is just a shame that a panorama picture doesn't do it justice. Less pretty was the sight of a dead gannet washed up on the shore:

We were told by the locals that avian flu seems to be busy killing off the smaller birds but that they are worried about the gannet population as they survive longer with the disease and hence have longer to spread it too. They are expecting more deaths amongst the larger seabirds as the summer draws to a close. Our callous views was, once more, shame it wasn't one of the massive seagull population instead. The locals are also very fed up with tourists who seem to insist on feeding the pesky things despite the signs saying they are pests.

The walk around the eastern side of the loch goes past one house that we always thought would be a "possibility" if we needed to live in the area. Up high, south west facing so it would get whatever sun was around and lovely views too:

A proper old stone built place. On second thoughts, the heating bills would be truly astronomical, maybe we stick to our little modern box in Hythe Marina.

There were only two downsides to our time in Campbeltown. The first was a charter yacht that arrived at 3am and rafted against us. That was a rude awakening, out to help with lines and decent sized fenders rather than the feeble little things they had. Nice folks but not a nice time. They stayed all of 6 hours before heading off again. The second downer was a repeat visit to the Fresh Connection cafe come shop. We'd been before, a few years ago and remembered it fondly. We saw how it was always busy compared to other places in town so when a table was free we happily grabbed it. Cake? Oh dear, back to the days of traybakes and a Victoria sponge.  Coffee - oh dear, nothing like last time. So, that visit will be the final one.

We were cheered up seeing this motorsailer in Campbeltown though:

We will never think that our waterline is a bit messy again. This one was so bad it had mussels growing in there too.

Carradale Bay to Tarbert

The winds finally abated a bit and the morning was way nicer. The anchor had held well and the visibility had improved too. Quite an improvement - it almost felt like late September should. Yes, it was mid July but after this season up here we take any little breaks we can get. There was even a little sun on some of the Carradale Bay shore:

Our plan was a gentle run up to Tarbert and to hide there for a few days. Why? Well, because we have some friends who live in Portavadie which is opposite Tarbert and we hoped to see them. Also because the coming weekend was going to be miserable again and being close to a food shop and a few "facilities" would be handy.

Getting the anchor free was trickier than normal - we needed to drive over it and persuade it out of the seabed backwards: the strong winds overnight had really dug it in well. The good news was that it came up pretty clean this time. Must have been in a nice sandy spot. Leaving the bay you get to enjoy the rock patterns a little:

and out of the mist the Ailsa Craig rock appeared looking like a spooky pudding basin or small nuclear explosion:

and then vanished again. However, heading up the side of the Isle of Arran, things perked up:

The route was nice and simple:

but despite this, the crew seemed very focussed when doing a bit of helming:

We had our usual delay for a CalMac ferry, this time it was the one from Lochranza (Arran) that goes across to the mainland. It was being a bit illegal too - no AIS transmission from it. As we approached Loch Fyne we had to make a bit of a loop from the quickest route again, this time to give an oncoming freighter some space. They are the blue triangle on the plotter iamge:

Rare to see something this size coming down the loch unless it is a fish farm vessel:

and this guy is a general cargo ship. So, after giving him some sea-room we proceeded in gloomier and gloomier weather to Tarbert harbour. The hammerhead that we had been allocated had a huge fish farm vessel on it so a radio call got us an alternative spot. In need of a proper walk, we then tested out a new local cafe come bistro place just outside the village centre which might have been a mistake. How do you get skin on the milk of a flat white? And who serves squirty cream with a scone (especially as the strange coffee arrived way after the cakes and the cream had retreated to a little puddle that is hard to spread with a knife)? 

No matter, we loved being back here in the pretty harbour area. We also loved an impromptu visit by the friends from Portavadie who braved the CalMac ferry to join us. Several plus points about that. One was seeing them. The second was a rather good chocolate and Guinness cake in an alternative establishment and the third was seeing Penny, their little cavapoo who was sure that we must have some food for her on our table:

When longing looks from the table height failed, she tried the full on "see how cute and needy I am" look:

A most enjoyable day was spent catching up.

One drawback of our spot was that the CalMac ferry berthed directly opposite. In the mornings it likes starting the two engines (which are pretty noisy!) around 7:20am ready for a 7:45 departure. I know you are supposed to let big diesels warm up a bit but that seems overkill. So much for the well publicised "CalMac commitment to the environment":

The ferry is the oldest in the CalMac fleet (built in 1976) and has two very noisy retrofitted Scania engines.

Things in Tarbert ended up on a less active note when the crew hurt her back in the usual silly way - picking something up from the cabin floor. Two days of intensive exercises, cold packs, ibuprofen and red wine seemed to free things up again luckily and only delayed our departure a little.

Maintenance News:

Well, it had to be done. We launched the RIB and the captain gave the waterline of the hull a scrub. We had some weed starting to attach itself around the starboard side of the bow which had to go. The whole boat had a clean up and then the RIB had a little harbour trip to help its rather ignored battery. 

The captain (foolishly) tried to improve the fitting of the belt guards on the front of the engine. One bolt is particularly pesky - it is right underneath the damper and holds a bracket on the bottom of the metal cover for the small alternator belt and then goes through the bottom of the two plastic covers that protect the multi-V belt. Then it goes into a threaded bracket on the engine. Only they NEVER line up nicely and the thread in the bracket has seen better days. All attempts to change things around by putting a smaller bolt through from the top then fixing it in place with a nut so the covers could then be guided onto it one by one and another nut used to secure them failed. The shape of the plastic guard doesn't allow it to drop down far enough to go over even the shortest of captive bolts.

That was an hour of life that was completely wasted. Apart from the learning opportunity that is so if any other Lugger 1066T owners are thinking that approach is a good idea as we did - you have just got an extra hour of your life back to enjoy.

Gigha to Campbeltown then Carradale Bay

The tide times for a run around the Mull of Kintyre were good - departure around 10:30 am gave us nice tidal help in the areas where the tide runs strongly. The weather played ball too as a strong NW wind that could make the Mull a bit rough (the official forecast was for 3m waves) would come well after we were on the eastern side of the mainland and hence sheltered.

So, we duly weighed anchor bringing up plenty of weed and mud:

and headed south avoiding pot markers and a couple of little fishing boats.  The plan was to go into Campbeltown, raid the local Tesco / Co-op and go for some walks / cycle rides around the loch. The crew had called the folks who run the pontoon there and the message was that there would be space as long as we arrived before the masses pitch up in the late afternoon.

From our route you can work out that this didn't happen as planned:

It was a nice calm trip south to the Mull with a gentle southerly wind on the nose.  Yes, gentle! Not at all what we had been used to this season. (We hesitate to say "summer"!)  Heading around the Mull you can see that we went a little way off the land to avoid the overfalls and rougher water. We did enjoy the 10.2 knots speed over the ground at 1450rpm! (With no tide help that would be more like 6.1 or 6.2 knots). As the conditions were reasonable, we cut inside Sanda island - the little lump of land you can see to the south east of the Mull above. That gave us the opportunity to add another little lighthouse picture, again in slightly misty conditions:

As we headed north towards Campbeltown, the wind duly changed direction and began to pick up. We felt quite smug about our timing, use of the tides and the shelter we were in. Somehow that was a bad thing. As we entered Campbeltown loch, the crew contacted the moorings folks to be told that someone had filled up the slot intended for us, in theory just as a lunchtime stop. The promised one hour stay had extended into way longer and there was no sign of life on board yet. As there are no nice anchorages in the loch, we went to plan B:

heading out and up to Carradale Bay where we could anchor and get some shelter from the strengthening winds too. On the way we saw a couple of dead gannets on the water and a couple of other birds looking very ill - they didn't even try to move as we approached and were floating "head down". Avian flu?

One other yacht was already in the bay but as it is a nice big area we could stay well away from them. Plenty of chain was used to secure us nicely and the big Rocna anchor dug in quite reassuringly. We retired inside and listened to the 30 knot gusts and our anchor snubber line taking the strain. Normal weather for 2022 was resumed. To give you an idea of how much we swung in the big gusts of wind, the backup GPS thought we were doing 0.4 knots whilst firmly anchored:

Please ignore the date - this device needs a software update, it is suffering from the GPS rollover issue we mentioned a while ago.

Maintenance News:

Nothing really, the belt dust from the new multi-V belt had dropped a lot. The anchor light was being pesky though - sometimes it would not switch on properly. We guess that the connectors on the bulb in the housing are getting corroded and need cleaning. However we cannot easily get to it, positioned high up on the stack without some serious climbing / safety gear. It might be time to fit an LED bulb in a housing that is better sealed against moisture ingress. 

Ardfern to Gigha

The sun had been out for a whole day and, guess what, it stayed out for another one! As it was nice and calm too, we decided to continue our slow trip south, planning to anchor near Tayvallich for the night. A quick trip to the local stores for fruit and then we headed off, enjoying the warmth on the flybridge. Somehow after weeks of grim weather it felt as though we had deserved it. As you can see, it was rather calm and sunny:

So we happily sat up top and enjoyed the views, wildlife and the tiny number of other craft out and about.  Our original plan was to head to the Tayvallich anchorage and either find some space there or just outside the moorings. However, that plan was modified a little en route as we decided to head further south to Gigha to take advantage of favourable tide times and weather for a trip around the Mull of Kintyre on the following day:

Loch Craignish was sunny but a little bit of mist was hanging around, together with one yacht bound for Jura:

As we got further south so the mist built up and made things look a bit more "grey" but it was still nice enough to stay up top. Here is an addition to the lighthouse collection - the little one on the mid channel rock at Ruadh Sgeir:

The sun, mist and wildlife combination was lovely really. Plenty of porpoises languidly turning in the water (they always look so lazy compared to dolphins),  lots of guillemot mum and chick combinations out, plenty of gannets and fortunately few pesky seagulls. This was approaching the entrance to Loch Sween, where you turn back on yourself to head up to Tayvallich:

and how the plotter sees things:

We did feel a little guilty at disturbing this poor gannet:

Most simply swim away but we clearly had spooked him / her:

Lots of energy expended in the takeoff.

Heading to Gigha, we had to wait for the CalMac ferry that was going into East Loch Tarbert. There are not that many sailings per day but we manage to time things to catch them perfectly it seems. Such luck. The northern end of Gigha is blighted by the fish farm mess that is taking over more and more of the area. Poor pictures thanks to the mist and the distance but you get to see how the farms look:

CalMac then treated us to another delay, waiting for the little ferry that links Gigha to the mainland before we anchored off. In a raft of weed we spotted three dead birds - it seems that the avian flu really is rampant in the wild bird population around here this year. So sad to see. (OK, we have to come clean, if they were all dead seagulls then we would not feel so sad as there are plenty of spares). 

The visitor mooring buoys and the pontoon were not that busy despite the nice weather:

and we enjoyed a very peaceful evening and night indeed. We had contemplated a walk but that involved getting the dinghy down and exercise. Somehow it was less tempting than it should have been.....

Since we had been "up top"rather than in the pilothouse, we missed the main engine achieving 4,000 hours running:

Just about run in now according to the Deere folks.

Maintenance News:

Well, the main engine ran well despite all the dismantling, prodding, pulling, heating and other general indignity it suffered when the torsional damper was replaced and the oil and filter changed too.  All ran well, just some belt dust from the two new drive belts to clean up. Probably more from the big multi-V belt than the last time it was renewed but there is no way to tweak the alignment of the pulleys - they are fixed so we are guessing (hoping) that it is just new belt syndrome! 

The simple V belt for the engine start battery alternator is a real pain to get running properly parallel to the crankshaft pulley, the alternator always needs shimming out a little. That seems to be all OK, no excessive dust from it. We fitted a Gates Fleetrunner belt which is supposed to have a way longer life than the standard ones. The "standard" belt that we removed still looked fine with little wear after 4 years use. Remember that it only has to run a little alternator which tops up the energy used to start the engine and then runs at about 2 amps output all the time, just to keep the engine controls, stop solenoid etc working. The alternator and hence belt do not have much to do really. Ages ago we abandoned the original twin belt setup that was impossible to get nicely aligned and moved to a single belt. Two really are overkill to just run the load of the little alternator.