Oily times and back to Tarbert

As we have a vague "old lifeboat" theme going on here, we ought to show you the launch of the refurbished "Robert", she is heading back to Ireland where she was based ready for the anniversary of the infamous 1979 Fastnet race when many yachts were in trouble and she was on service and saved two of them:

So, what have we been up to? Well, we headed over to Holy Loch for the inverter swap as you have seen before. Whilst there all three of the engine room motors (main, wing and genset) got their mid-season oil and filter changes. Easy enough with the built in pump. Then, with functioning inverters again,  we had a nice trip around to Tarbert where we met up with a Norn Iron couple, Keith and Julie in their yacht Scotia. Poor yacht. She started with the 4 of us on board, then other friends of theirs arrived to make it 6 Norn Iron folks plus us. Then two Scottish folks from a nearby yacht joined in too. The cockpit was very very full, the night was very very late and the craic was getting louder and louder in true Norn Iron style. Keith changed appearance during the evening from the suave, handsome man we all know and love (or lust after in the case of a few blog readers):

into a strangely headed "thing":

We are still wondering why a horse's head is kept on board. We have plenty of strange things but not that. Perhaps we are missing out? Anyway, a really good couple of evenings were enjoyed with them. We launched the RIB and Keith went and played hooligan with it. The steering had become very stiff so the (rather guilty) captain took it to pieces and tried to remove some of the old hardened grease from the steering cable / tube:

It was significantly better afterwards but we need something like a gun barrel cleaner to get the old gunge out properly. Another winter job for the list.

In Tarbert, there was a very strange bi-annual Viking festival going on:

with replica boats being rowed around. To us it looked like an excuse for folks with long unkempt straggly beards to dress up in strange gear, get away without having a shower and look important. A most random event but one that attracted plenty of spectators in the lovely sunny weather. The Scottish tourist board were there with a van dressed up as a typical highland "Hairy coo":

The rather bored looking guy was trying to get people to visit Scotland (they were already there?) and to get folks to enter a free draw. The crew did and later on found that she had won a "Hairy coo" print from some semi-famous local artist. Frankly, we think that Ruth's painting was better but beggars and choosers and all that....