Oban to Kilmelford

We had some fun during our time in Oban. For example, the raft race in the harbour area attracted some serious dressing up:

Is the water really so polluted that you need NASA style protection? The race also attracted some very 1960's psychedelic rafts:

Not sure that Vikings were into mind altering drugs like LSD though. Think they had other substances in those days....  Despite all the frolics, when a nice weather window opened up (ie once the tail end of tropical storm Bertha had moved over to annoy the east coast) we decided to depart.

Sometimes, things don't go to plan. Sometimes, plans change. This was to be a day with both.

Original idea was to head off just after 8:30 (remember the key fob deposit game at Dunstaffnage marina?) and then to take the tide down to the lovely anchorage at Puilladobhrain for the night. Then we would trundle down past Fladda and the sound of Luing and hole up in Killmelford for the weekend, before the nice winds and rain arrived.

The first part of the plan went sick when the office was still shut at 8:30. A little notice in the window contradicted the internet info and said it opened at 9am. Hum. See earlier thoughts on the organisation here in the last post. Still, to get our £20 key fob deposit, it was worth waiting half an hour.

One fringe benefit of this delay was that the captain managed to get WIFI connected for about 10 minutes, by hanging about the bridgehead (and looking furtive of course). The advertised free WIFI doesn't work at all on the pontoons but if you cuddle up close to the aerial, it sometimes is kind and lets you in. This revealed that the strong south westerly winds and soggy stuff  that were forecast for Saturday & Sunday might be arriving a little earlier. OK, plan B was decided upon - go to Kilmelford today then get some walks in on Friday before hunkering down over the weekend.

Leaving Dunstaffnage it was regulation grey and gloomy. The west coast of Kererra kept us busy - it was a forest of pot markers so plenty of dodging around. Mull looked grey and broody again with low cloud cover:

Luckily, the sun peeped out a little and it was less grey (well, slightly less) as we approached the prettiest part of the trip - heading down the Sound of Insh:

Typical west coast scenery, island upon island stacked into the distance.

As lighthouses are making quite a showing here, we decided to treat you to the other side of the Fladda version too, this is also to prove that the sun did come out:

Down the sound of Luing, the tide was busy shoving us along. Spring tides but we were not experiencing the strongest flow which was an hour and a half earlier All the same the speed over the ground increased dramatically and we got very excited seeing over 12.4 knots (as per the picture, speed through the water was 6.5kn) Of course, we missed Linda squealing in excitement at this new record speed for our slow Nordhavn:

So glad we were not going the other way, we would still be out there......

The nice folks at Kilmelford moved a yacht about on their pontoon so we could have a mooring there rather than out on a buoy for the soggy days ahead. We were treated to tea in the office and felt quite at home! The local rowers were out again:

impressively in time and with oars aligned too. Sue, one of the rowers who we met last year, came to join us for tea and a chat later on. Yes, this place feels like home somehow! The day ended with a lovely sunset, what could be better after a nice trip with great scenery and a warm welcome back to the lovely setting of Kilmelford: