Troon to Greenock (James Watt Dock)

The forecast for the next few days was not good. Windy, rainy and unappealing. We must be in Scotland and it must be summer. With 4 days of that ahead of us, we opted to head up into the Clyde and hide out in James Watt Dock for a while. We'd not been there before, however some folks that we met in Dartmouth a year or so ago have their yacht based there now and they are involved in the company that runs the place too. On the basis that we could catch up with them and also easily get into Glasgow, Greenock seemed like the place to go.

 It was rare / unheard of to say that during our time living in Edinburgh of course! Greenock is not one of the most scenic parts of Scotland. So, not expecting beautiful surroundings upon arrival, we headed off for a run that should take just under 6 hours with the promise of "moderate" seas according to the Met Office. (For the non boaters, moderate means 1.25 to 2.5 m high).

The route itself is most scenic, around the islands and up towards Glasgow:

Heading out of Troon harbour we had the lovely smell of freshly cut timber thanks to the stacks on the quayside and this little guy who had just brought some more:

The sea conditions were as per the forecast so around a couple of metres. Not enough to bother a couple of tankers anchored up nearby:

which were, naturally, right in the way of our planned course. A small diversion gave us the delightful sight of her bottom:

Not quite as pretty as the bottom belonging to Mimosa that we enjoyed in the Dunkirk film.

As we turned to head north inside the Cumbrae islands we had a nice following swell. A workboat, appropriately named Bruiser was pushing into it:

or maybe that should be through it? Typical small tug style craft, lots of power, lots of wash to go just a little above hull speed. They went out to one of the anchored ships and then back towards Glasgow all at a totally inefficient and very wet velocity.

Passing Hunterston, the wind turbines were, despite the nice force 5 wind, not very active:

This is not a fast shutter speed picture. they were not moving. Seems to be the way. The ones on the land look a little less menacing than the ones we passed out to sea off Arklow. Not pretty but less menacing somehow.

There were very few pleasure boats out until we got into the more sheltered waters further north. Even then they were struggling a little. This motorboat was making very little way but still throwing up plenty of spray:

We entered new territory for us as we passed Dunoon and hung a right turn. The dock area (Clydeport)  was pretty empty as we passed by:

It felt a little like Prestwick airport, lots of infrastructure being barely used but politically important.

On our berth in James Watt Dock the view aft made us feel rather insignificant:

Washing the boat off later on we didn't feel too jealous though. Apparently Amaryllis has 17 crew on board. If you are tempted to a trip on her, she is for charter from $770K per week plus expenses. Have a look at Charter website. Maybe we need to up our rates a little when friends stay on board?