Carradale bay to Gigha and Ardfern

We had a stupid 2:35am alarm set and weighed the anchor around 3am (only a little weed came up with it luckily) As it was the longest day of the year, it didn't stay dark for long though. The longest day and being further north really helps. We only needed / used the FLIR for around 40 minutes before we could spot things by eyeball.  Our departure timing was dictated by the tides around the Mull of Kintyre. We wanted to round it just as the tide was turning in our favour but before it really picked up and made for a very bumpy ride.

The original, hatched whilst in Tarbert plan, was to anchor off Gigha, spend a day or so there and then probably carry on heading north to Ardfern which is one of our favourite spots. Sometimes plans change as you will see from this Marine Traffic track:

The little "kink" in the route as we head north, up the western side of Kintyre was indeed us anchoring off Gigha. Briefly though, more on that later.

Just out of interest, the Vessel finder system kind of lost us. It shows the route from Tarbert to Carradale, then around the Mull, the stop off Gigha and then shows us in limbo saying that the last information received was over 7 hours old. Again you see how the coverage by Marine Traffic is better even if their new app is pretty dire:

Luckily the Toddlers use Marine Traffic so when stalking us, they didn't have to worry that we were stopped in an inappropriate place or just plain lost or sunk.

It was a lovely calm and quiet early morning run down to the Mull, a couple of yachts came out from Campbeltown and followed us but that was about it. We took an nice inshore route and got plenty of tidal help as we approached the south western corner of the Mull, before turning north:

10.7 knots over the ground when we were only doing 6.4 through the water was good - free diesel really. That "corner" of the Mull was suitably bumpy as the tide had a little squabble with the rapidly changing sea bed profile. We threw a bit of spray around, went through it and headed north, still with tidal help, towards Gigha. The sun was out, the winds were light and all was good:

Except for the weather forecast. Originally there were going to be nice westerly or SWly winds, meaning we would be nicely sheltered tucked in on the eastern side of Gigha. That morning the forecast changed significantly to a direction that is about the worst possible for that anchorage. We were going to be in for a very disturbed night which after the 2:35am alarm was not tempting at all. We arrived off Gigha around 9am and decided to see if there would be space in Ardfern, at the marina, for us. We called them, were told that they would check and call back. Meanwhile we anchored, shut down the navigation kit and chilled a little enjoying the glorious day.

Ardfern called back, said they had space so we fired the boat up again and headed further north. Fortunately there was still some fair tide to help us. The only downside was that despite the sunny day, it was too cold on the flybridge since the sun was being shielded by the bimini cover and the wind was still a bit keen.  All the same, the run up to Ardfern was lovely.

We berthed quite neatly, although we say it ourselves, so the audience had nothing to enjoy. We, on the other hand, enjoyed the view from the flybridge although we were pretty tired after the early start and 12 hours on the move:

A calm and sunny evening followed, with some impressive reflections of the yachts:

and the hills and breakwater area:

We slept rather well that night. Very well in fact.

The following day we  started by launching the RIB which had been very ignored since Penarth. The Yamaha started and then cut out, refusing to re-start. Er?? There was some fuel stain on the water too so the hood came off and we found a loose fuel filter. Tighten it and all was well. This was quite spooky. We had exactly the same problem in Ardfern back in 2013 when during a nice run up the loch, the motor just cut out. An Ardfern curse of sorts? Very odd indeed. The filter assembly has a plastic body with a strange shape that no normal spanner will tighten. As it is plastic you have to be very gentle with it anyway:

 

Once the engine was happy again, we had a serious hooligan burn down the loch to the nearby lagoon which is used by the local folks for moorings. The engine behaved perfectly, the first proper hard run since Portland last year.

After that excitement we dug out the bikes and headed down the peninsular to Craignish point:

A pretty quiet single track road and one long part of it was billiard table smooth - fewer potholes than on the M4. You end up at a little track leading down to on old quay:

Which opens out into quite a view over the islands of Scarba and Lunga plus a peek at the infamous Corryvreckan, the huge scary whirlpool area:

It was just lovely. As was a stop at the new version of Lucy's. Lucy's was a rather good coffee and food spot in a nice new building in the village that had a great following. For some odd reason she has decamped to Arisaig but the folks who ran the rather tired local shop have taken over and the transformation was a good one. We forced ourselves to stop off and test the place out on the way back.

After so much fun, an afternoon of boat polishing was in order. Just had to be done. 

Maintenance news:

The main engine was treated to around half a litre of oil. We try hard not to overfill it after an oil change as the angle it is installed at means the dipstick markings are underreading the actual amount in the sump. The time had come though to treat the engine to a little more lube. Apart from that, all was well mechanically.

One annoyance was that the manual Edson bilge pump that we'd rebuilt 4 years ago was showing signs of leakage again. The stupid thing is aluminium - just ideal for having seawater sitting in it long term.  Nordhavn tend to fit good quality equipment, how that thing was used is beyond us. It will need to be stripped down again soon to see just how sickly it is. We fear that we know the answer though - and a new bronze Edson pump is way too much money for what it basically is. We will see how this plays out. Probably very expensively.

Leaving Tarbert and off to Carradale Bay for the night, albeit a short one

There was an OK forecast to get around the Mull of Kintyre and so we decided it was time to go north. As we left Tarbert, a local man (Archie) who has photographed us before from his flat in the old Columba hotel building took a couple of great images of the boat underway. This one he posted onto Marine Traffic:

and this one he kindly emailed to us:

It was good that the crew had retrieved and stowed all the fenders before we passed his flat! The flybridge was a bit chilly so we were in the pilothouse but had some great views to enjoy:

By the way, that is real "great views" comment not a Trump style "great".  We had planned to head down to Carradale Bay, a handy anchorage before the Mull of Kintyre where we could overnight. A simple trip passing between the Kintyre peninsular and the Isle of Arran:

It was quite enjoyable too, bar the ugly fish farm ship hanging around in the entrance to Loch Fyne:

The fish farms and their support vessels all seem to be made as ugly as possible to defile the wonderfully beautiful lochs.  Here is an example:

We do wonder just how many jobs and how much tax income they generate in reality, despite the government hype and massive expansion of them by foreign companies.

We dropped the hook in around 8 metres of water (the tide was dropping so it would end up around 6 in depth) set the anchor watch alarm and chilled enjoying the views and sun:

As the seabed shelves very gently towards the shore, you do end up anchoring quite a long way off the beach itself and you have that feeling of space. The nearest yacht was not at all near:

You can see the depths on this bit of chart:

We ate, turned on the anchor light and went to bed early as we needed a very early start the next morning. Pesky tide timings again.