Bute to Asgog Bay (one of those died and gone to heaven spots)

We wriggled ourselves out of Port Bannatyne despite the best efforts of the wind to keep us pinned against the pontoon / other boats. The lovely views around the Kyles of Bute were a little muted as there was some cloud about (way better than rain of course so not an issue!)

The little ferry at Colintrave - for the first time - didn't head off and force us to alter course. It stayed snuggled up to the Bute slipway:

Must be the most expensive ferry crossing going. The trip is timetabled for a whole 5 minute crossing but costs £10.05 for a car (you pay for the driver and passengers too of course). Wonder what will happen when "road equivalent" pricing starts on that route later this year.

Just past the ferry are the nice narrows. This gives you a reasonable idea of the gap - no space for two fat boats to pass in safety when the tide is going across the channel:

We were all on our own so no pressure at all. Heading down the west Kyle towards Tighnabruaich was pretty good as the sun was busy with nice views aft too:

Linda continued her photographic tour of Scotland, capturing images of the village and the local bank (perhaps for Patrick, remember that he attempted a bank robbery here two years ago):

As you can see, a woolly hat is a must have accessory in Scotland this summer for some folks.
  
We wanted to stop off the town but more and more of the area is getting filled up with mooring buoys. Of course, the visitor buoys only want boats up to about 15 tons so we need to anchor. The problem is that there is so little space to do so near to the rapidly shelving shoreline. We tried the one "possible" spot between two buoys, found that it wasn't good holding and so gave up and carried on.

We ended up very glad that we did so, as we anchored in Asgog Bay near Portavadie. It was calm enough to sit on the flybridge with an early evening libation, whist drinking in the views of the Isle of Arran astern, the Kintyre peninsular and the mainland whilst in a lovely bay:

One of those anchorages that is only suitable in offshore light winds, which turn into little chunks of memory heaven.


Maintenance news:

Having Andrew on board, we were desperate to find some maintenance that needed doing. Well - result! When Roland replaced the vibration damper on the front of the engine, he had rebuilt the engine alternator covers exactly as you would expect to do. What he didn't know, and the captain had forgotten to mention of course) was that one needs to be spaced out a little to stop it chafing gently on the alternator pulley when the engine is at idle and vibrates more.

Of course, doing that means getting very grubby as there is plenty of black belt dust to get all over your hand but it isn't an especially hard job.