Ardfern, Gigha, Carradale Bay

We had a plan of sorts. Feeling it was time to head slowly south, we originally wanted to try and get into Port Ellen on Islay. The anchoring opportunities there are not great and there are only 2 berths in the little community run harbour we could use. However, we saw that they only accept boats up to 12 tons. That just rules us out. Only by a teeny few tons of course.....

The debate was - "should we go back inside the Mull of Kintyre for a while or potter down the Irish costs slowly". Decision was to go back inside the Mull for a while, then Norn Iron, then see what the weather allows.

The next decision was when do we go round the Mull itself. Weather and tide times are ultra important there. The first part of the plot was easy enough, take a fair tide and anchor off Gigha. So we did, only the southerly wind was against the tide and made it quite a bumpy trip, nodding into the short steep waves. At least the 10am departure time was civilised. 

As we got to Gigha and dropped the anchor, so the sun came out. A lovely afternoon disturbed only by the little ferry heading back and forth, easily visible from the pilothouse as you can see:

Idyllic spot. However, we then had to decide about rounding the Mull. The tides dictated doing that sometime after midnight or waiting until the following day, leaving Gigha around 10am. That is way nicer of course but, as always in life, other factors intervened. The wind was due to pick up in the early morning, around 3am and blow quite strongly from the NE. We did not want to be off Sanda, (the little Island SE of the Mull) with a strong following tide and the wind blowing over the top of it. This image from the tidal atlas tells you how strong the tides are in the area:

Up to 3.4 knots if we went around at the "optimum" time to speed up the trip.

Staying overnight where we were with a strong NEly wind building would mean a bit of a disturbed night  - as you can see, the eastern side of Gigha is not too well sheltered from the NE.

The decision was to head off later that evening, aim to get to the Mull just as the tide turned in our favour and be well round it by the time the strong NEly picked up.  So, the best option looked like the least pleasant one time-wise and scenery-wise. So be it. Here is the track we followed, showing the anchor time off Gigha and then the night time passage around the Mull and up to the Carradale Bay anchorage: 

As we headed off, it was still lovely and sunny, calm and very pleasant indeed. Patrick the penguin and his constant companion were enjoying the views:

and a nice pink sunset on the clouds added the the experience a bit later on, even if this picture doesn't look that "pink". You will have to take our word for it - the sky was lovely:

We didn't cut inshore around the Mull for two reasons. Firstly it gets bumpy in the confused water on the western side and secondly, we've seen a few pot markers inshore there before. The weather was turning murky and damp - the worst conditions for our FLIR (infra-red camera) to work in. Normally we can spot properly marked pots pretty well at night but in drizzle / fog / rain it becomes a different game. The image is very degraded. If you want to be a real propeller head on why, look at the manufacturer's information in this FLIR weblink. If you have a more normal life and no desire to be a crashing bore on the subject at parties,  then it is down to water droplets scattering and absorbing the infra-red radiation that the camera tries to detect.  Sure enough, the camera struggled big time in the drizzle and rain.

Our timing to get around Sanda island and begin to head north was pretty perfect. Before the tide picked up too much and the promised strong NE'ly winds kicked in:

You can see we were getting tidal help, just not rocket assistance at that stage by our speed over the ground. Sure enough, as forecast, the stronger gusts arrived but by then we were further north and the sea didn't have time to build that much before we headed into the anchorage. Again, we stayed further offshore than you would in daylight, just in case of pot trouble. We anchored up in about 6 metres of water, near a lone yacht and tucked well into the bay for some lovely shelter from the waves that were building in the sound itself. You can see how nicely sheltered the bay is from the North, North East winds:

and we anchored pretty much where the little anchor symbol is.

The only image we can share of our arrival is this one, of the GPS position that we took as a reference against dragging the anchor:

Not terribly exciting we know but it was pitch black outside. 

We pinned the stabilisers, killed the engine and most of the navigation gear and turned on the anchor watch alarm on the Furuno kit. We then fired up the Furuno app on the phone which we can take down to the cabin with us to repeat the alert if we are dragging. Finally the navigation lights went off, the anchor light on and it was time to collapse into a welcoming bed. 4am is not our preferred bedtime we hasten to add. The trip was 18 hours including the time anchored off Gigha - tiring, but it worked out as well as it possibly could.  

Maintenance news:

Whilst pumping fuel through the polishing filter into the supply tank, the captain noticed that it was slowing down a bit. It needs  a new filter in the Racor device. That will get done when there is somewhere to dispose of the old diesel soaked one. We use quite a fine filter in there and as they pick up dirt in the fuel, they get even more clogged and the effective micron rating drops so they are harder and harder to pump fuel through.

One oddity - the big magnetron radar was used, it worked fine on longer ranges as always, showing the land of the Mull nicely when zoomed out to around a 6 mile range or more. However, when it was zoomed in to around 2 miles, the coastline became very indistinct. Turning off the automatic gain, sea state and rain clutter controls and winding the gain right up helped but it was not as it should be. Grr. We switched to the other digital radar and were happy we had a backup. Something to investigate..... 

Kerrera to Ardfern

A civilised departure time, no rain and very little wind. What could possibly go wrong? We started out on the flybridge, enjoying the lovely views of the mainland and Kerrera as we threaded our way between them. There are a couple of these old MoD ships on mooring buoys just off Kerrera and we wonder just what they get used for now, if anything. This one was the tidiest:

If you fancy one, there is a nice example for sale on Rightboat at the moment. Quite cheap too. Might be a tad rusty of course and we have no idea how you'd get on sourcing parts for the elderly but lovely Lister Blackstone diesel in the engine room.

We duly headed down towards the narrow, shallow route between the islands of Fladda and Luing just as the rain started. Trying to move inside, cover up the flybridge instruments etc whilst making sure we stayed in the deeper wet bit was amusing - timing of the rain shower was not great. Here is the little island of Fladda from the pilothouse:

and the little tower on the tiny island opposite it:

We managed to avoid the rocky bits but once you are through there, the whirlpools take over big time. The boat gets thrown around quite a lot and you get some great acceleration at times. We were doing 1475 rpm, power for around 6.2 knots when we saw this:

It actually went up to 12.1 knots for a brief time.  We were, in Nordhavn terms, flying. As we headed down the sound of Luing, we were being followed by Capt Rae in Albatross who had popped out from an anchorage in Loch Spelve, also taking advantage of the fair tide. He was heading further south so our tracks diverged as we approached the Corryvreckan area:

We thought it would be nice to get a picture of the mighty Albatross as she was passing the infamous Corryvreckan with the equally infamous Capt Rae at the controls. Only she was too distant for even the zoom lens on the proper camera to picture properly:

She doesn't look as mighty in this picture but it does give you an idea of the scale of the scenery in Scotland and why cruising here is very special indeed.

Here is the route we took, it isn't detailed enough to show the many wriggles caused by the whirlpools in the Sound of Luing:

Naturally, as we approached Ardfern, it started to rain again. We called the Yacht Harbour and they asked us to "stand-by".  Sure enough some folks who were supposed to leave had not so they needed to drag a yacht along the visitor pontoon to make space for us. By then it was really raining. We were so happy, especially as the yachts should have left by mid-day and this was well afterwards. So, we berthed, cuddled up to another yacht as requested only for it, and the one that had to be dragged out of the way, leave soon afterwards. On the South coast of England they would have been chased out / charged extra etc etc. All so much more relaxed and so much nicer here.

We had decided on a berth not anchoring as it was our anniversary and we were going to eat out. The only gig in town, the Galley of Lorne was visited once more. A young lad on his first day was the waiter and he ended up prefacing most visits to the table with "I'm sorry but". Despite that, it was all OK.

We had a full day there and managed a nice waterside walk, down to the Craignish moorings area:

It is a very lovely area. The cinnamon and cranberry scones in the Ardfern shop / cafe aren't bad either.