Craobh to Dunstaffnage (Oban)

Most unlike us, we did some planning. Why? Well, we needed to get to Oban to collect Andrew and Linda (Fair play, lush and other typical Welsh phrases needed here) on Sunday. We also needed some larger shops so we could feed them properly too. All this means Oban - the metropolis (all things are relative in this world but it has a Tesco, Aldi, Lidl and Co-op and a million tea shops for tourists.

We actually booked a berth in Dunstaffnage for 4 nights as the West Highland Yachting week was due to finish in Oban on Friday, just when we needed to be there. Could be cosy.

The infrastructure in Craobh needs quite a bit of investment by the way. No security gate on the pontoons now, the power supply pedestal near our berth had 4 very corroded connectors and the farther one (which we used) seemed to be wired up with bell push cable. As soon as you put any load on it, see what happened to the voltage:

For the non European readers the proper UK Voltage should be 220-240V. As we write this berthed in Oban, we have 237v under a 14 amp load. You can work it out - dinner was a slow affair.

Richard (the HUGE Nordhavn 76 owner) took some pictures of our departure and so here is an image that we cannot often share - Rockland departing Croabh, the crew retrieving fenders and lines etc and the captain doing the low stress "pointing it in the right direction" bit:

This trip was awesome. Great weather (it looked gloomy in the earlier pic, but the sun came out and there was little wind, ideal for motorboating) and stunning scenery too.  Here is an example, heading up the Sound of Luing with the Fladda lighthouse to port:

and now, looking aft as we left the sound and headed up towards Easdale:

Get the general idea? Sitting on the flybridge, hilly bits / rocky bits all around, restful sound of the dry exhaust for the big Lugger engine at 1480rpm, lots of wildlife etc etc. All pretty good really. This video shows the panorama from the flybridge heading towards Kererra with the mainland to starboard, Kererra ahead and the Isle of Mull to port:

Passing Oban, another very West Coast scene - the Calmac ferry heading out passing an old castle with hills in the background. Yup, this kind of sums up the lifestyle here:

Dunstaffnage is in another glorious spot. Sadly they are very short of bigger berths so we were put alongside the walkway between two pontoons. Not a problem getting in there (remember we have a chunky bow and stern thruster if we need them) but it means that when the boats ahead or astern of us want to get out of their berths, they need to "wriggle past" us. Hopefully past, not touching / scraping of course. We've had enough of that this year already.....

Just to prove that it isn't always wet and windy in Scotland, here is an evening picture across the bay - get the reflections:

We sat in the aft cockpit enjoying the sun, air and life in general. If only all days were like this one.