Kilmelford to Craobh Haven

The day started badly - woke to heavy rain so didn't get too keen too early. As the sun came out, so did we. First thing was a decision - should we go further north or start heading south? We will have to go to Norfolk regularly to sort out the bungalow there etc etc so being in "range" of a place that hires cars, has good public transport or has an airport is more important now. Kind of rules out the far north west of Scotland so we will be back next year. The Baltic trip gets postponed.... 

We went to pay for the maintenance work (see last post) and our mooring. The invoice wasn't ready yet - we offered to pay for just the mooring before we left but they were happy to email a bill through to us. Very trusting, just like the typical south coast establishments! 

No desire to push the spring tides heading south so we settled on a very short trip down to Craobh Haven. The initial plan to anchor was canned when we saw the forecast strong winds from the wrong direction for the nearby bay.

It was so good to start the big Lugger and head off. En route, a ruined castle and a lovely old yacht to enjoy from the flybridge:

Craobh Haven is basically a few houses, a hotel and some moorings in a beautiful spot sheltered by some islands:

A nice little entrance too, viewed from inside the harbour area:

We knew that the new Nordhavn 63 "Due North" lived here. However, when we arrived it was like a Nordhavn sales event. We've never seen as many in one place in the UK before, apart from an open event at the European distributors office a while ago.

Here is the daddy of the marina, the 63:

Also in attendance was Annie M, the 47 owned by Owen who we met in Kip Marina a while ago (see earlier post) - serious blog followers will be able to recognise our boat out of the two of course:

And one of the first Nordhavn's built, a 46:

For the boat tekkies, the "scaffolding" up top is because she has paravanes fitted - fins that are trailed in the water amidships suspended from the long "poles". They reduce the rolling of the boat when moving. We have hydraulically operated fins under the hull to do this:

but of course the paravanes don't rely on the main engine running and operating the hydraulic pump - they are kind of fail safe. The only unsafe bit is launching and retrieving them - big heavy metal objects that have to be manhandled in possibly bumpy seas. The crew would NOT be doing that I fear.....

And lastly, the baby of the Nordhavn range - a 40 called Free Spirit. We were originally going to buy a new 40 but the fates conspired and we ended up with our used 47. So glad, living aboard a 40 would not be too practical (ask the 747 captain known by blog readers as Colin; he is swapping to a 47 for exactly that reason):

The day finished sitting in the aft cockpit enjoying the sun and watching a cormorant trying to get on top of a buoy to perch and dry his wings. He /she failed and fell back into the water so many times that once he/she finally made it, we reckon he/she was too frightened to try holding open the wings as well as hanging on. So, the poor bird just stood there, no wing drying or fishing possible, a little unsteady but sort of triumphant, all alone: