Campbeltown to Carradale Bay to Tarbert

The next few days had to be planned around the weather forecasts. Sunday / Monday were supposed to be wet and blowy so we wanted to hole up somewhere with a few facilities in walking distance for 2 or 3 nights. Having decided upon Tarbert, the crew called to book a berth as their website said ">45 feet, book in advance". A fairly disinterested girl answered the phone and said that it would be "turn up and hope for space" on Saturday. After telling her that their website said "book" she managed to take some details but probably didn't bother to write them down.... Almost as welcoming as Tobermory last year. Perhaps they were both rabid SNP supporters and we have the wrong accents?

No matter, leaving Campbeltown in the sun for a nice short hop was delightful - in fact we actually managed to leave Campbeltown and clear the loch whilst sitting on the flybridge. No, we were not wrapped in duvets either, despite the lack of summer up here. As a fairly stiff NW'ly wind was promised, we picked a suitably sheltered anchorage at Carradale Bay for a night, arriving to find it totally empty. Had we misheard and misread the forecast wind direction? No, a double check said we were right. Suitably anchored at low water in about 7 meters we had lovely views of the bay:

 and astern of us, the Isle of Arran and some great colours:

After a quiet, well sheltered night there, we toddled off to Tarbert. Heading up the west coast of Arran there are some excellent views of the mountains / hills on the island. You also get to see some of the small CalMac ferries buzzing to and fro - a real reminder that you are in Scotland, the land of heavily subsidised transport owing to the geography. Seeing this hilly panorama around Lochranza, you can work out just how gusty it would be in the anchorage there during offshore winds:

You know how sometimes you can be very wrong? Well, whilst en route, a nice lady called Donna called from Tarbert Harbour, to tell us that she was reserving mooring B1 for us and where it was located. She said that as we would be "longer term visitors" (more than the normal 1 night!) she wouldn't put us on the visitor pontoon as we might have to raft up on Saturday night. We didn't like to tell her that it is often the other way around -  people don't like over 40 tons of Nordhavn hanging on their little Tupperware yacht! Super service, eat you heart out the miserable folks in Tobermory.

Having negotiated a tricky turn and reverse job onto the fabled "B1" with all the other boaters watching (no pressure) we had some great views from what is effectively a marina within the harbour:

There are some nice little islands in the entrance that provide shelter and also interesting pilotage when you meet a suicidal fishing boat going at full steam the other way, in the middle of the narrow channel, with no desire to give an inch. Probably driven by a wannabe Lewis Hamilton. Still pretty though:

In the harbour itself is a replica Viking boat:

and whoever carved the figurehead bit had a good sense of humour - this one doesn't look scary and has a lovely tongue retrofitted as well:

As Sunday's forecast was very wet, the crew had called and booked lunch at a hotel, kind of a hunker down and hide away day. Well, we went walking along Campbeltown Road to find the place to no avail. Back to an area where EE had some coverage to find that she had booked a hotel in West not East Loch Tarbert. She will not be allowed to prepare any boat passage plans in future. However, as it was sunny and to test out the recovering knee, we did the walk to the hotel and back to check it out in advance.

As the wind dropped during the evening we enjoyed one of "those" special moments with reflections in the water, a little harbour activity, a sensible temperature and a generally content feeling: