Portavadie, road trips and more social time

We mentioned that going to Tarbert allowed us to see the friends who reside in Portavadie. Well, we duly took the ferry over to see them:

The regular little car ferry, the Isle of Cumbrae, had been taken away to fill yet another gap in Calmac's flaky service to another island. So, the poor locals had no car ferry, just a passenger service operated at high speed by a Redbay RIB. Oh yes we thought, that will be a fun ride. Extra bonus, that was for free. It also meant that we didn't have the irritation of the antique car ferry starting up her engines a good 30 minutes before heading off each morning, berthed near us in the harbour. Noisy and a guaranteed early wake-up call. Typically the car ferry returned the night before we wanted to use the service.

After a slow trip on the 50 year old ferry, we met Sheila and Niall, together with Penny the dog. They took us on a road trip to Otter Ferry initially, where we walked to Ballimore House - they offer B and B if you are interested:

Quite a place and a most pleasant walk around their grounds. We did not abuse the Scottish "right to roam" laws though and kept well clear of the house itself. Otter Ferry itself was a place full of memories. Our last visit was in 2013 when we anchored inside the sand bar and had dinner in the pub there so we would use the WiFi to book some flights south. How the world has changed - a great phone signal there now and, if you want to give the nice Mr Elon Musk lots of money, satellite internet via Starlink too. 

After a lovely overnight ashore at Sheila and Niall's house, enjoying their excellent hospitality, we had a short car trip (mainly single track roads of course) and then walked to Kilbride bay where Penny the dog had a great time:

We recognise that ball in the mouth expression so well - very Izzy like. We had a good time too, here are the more photogenic humans:

The captain took one for the team - taking the picture and escaping being in it and spoiling the view, which was rather special too:

Arran in the distance, a little cloud hanging over the hilly bits, just perfect. Afterwards we visited the community run cafe in Tighnabruaich. The village seemed way more alive than when we visited in 2013 and anchored off the Royal hotel. More little shop units were open, the main street was busier too. 

We enjoyed a great time (as always) with Sheila and Niall.   Penny as well. It was a bit sad to leave them and get the ferry over to Tarbert again. However, this was tempered as Iolair was still around and the yottie folks had arrived on their posh Malo too. A rather civilised dinner in the yacht cockpit was enjoyed, even if Robert looks a tad grumpy in this picture (you should see the other one we took!!)

Catching up with the delightful Deborah and Robert, saying bye to the Iolair crew over a coffee, raiding the local Coop and generally chilling was rather good. Barney the dog was reported as trying to return to our boat, not his own after walks as he wanted the "fun boat" - where he gets to destroy toys. We kindly gave Sarah one so Barney could leave their saloon as a murder scene too:

Sorry Sarah....

Here is how another Nordhavn 47 looks as they headed off:

You can see that Neil takes his "checking the area for other traffic" responsibility most seriously. Plenty of waving too from the Skipper and Sarah (but not Barney bin Laden) as they departed:

The weather was no way as bad as they had forecast  - naturally. It got a bit unpleasant towards the weekend but the original forecast was way off yet again. Never mind, it made us spend a week in Tarbert and we had lots of quality time with some lovely people. All good.

Maintenance news:

The lucky genset had a brief run, the aircon compressor had one too, being used to put some load on the genset. Then the genset was treated to fresh oil and a filter swap. Dead simple as jobs go but satisfying and needed

Off to Tarbert and meeting folks

Where next? One of those decisions that we often face as itinerant floaters, pottering around with no fixed plans. Usually the weather and tides play a significant part in that decision as they did on this occasion. We were promised nearly a week of windy and soggy stuff with a couple of particularly nasty days too. What to do - well, the lure of Tarbert was strong. We could see the friends who live in Portavadie, Neil and Sarah were already there in Iolair another Nordhavn 47 and the yottie friends from Troon in their swish Malo were out and about, also threatening to turn up in Tarbert. Had to be done.

Naturally the tide times were all wrong for a trip north but as they are not too strong in the Kilbrannan sound, we just headed off, leaving Campbeltown astern on a nice sunny day:

For the first time ever, we saw a naval vessel on the NATO fuelling pier. Amazing. It was HMS Bangor, a baby minehunter and one that was resurrected from planned scrappage when the Navy realised that minehunting capability in deeper waters might still be handy:

She is the last of her class to survive in service and had just been through a refit. We are always staggered at how many people seem to work at the NATO fuel base when these is so little ship activity there. (We say work, maybe we should say "turn up in their cars"). 

It was a gentle sunny flybridge trip enjoying the views and dolphins until the top of Arran when the wind picked up and we retired inside for lunch. The yottie friends from Troon were also underway and said they could see us. We are pretty distinctive whereas a white yacht with white sails is a touch harder to identify when there are a couple more about. However, we saw them on AIS and knew in which direction to wave:

The pretty route feels strange - you start close to the Kintyre Peninsular, then graze the west side of the island of Arran near Lochranza, then hug the peninsular once more:

Just before the big "hang a left" into Loch Fyne, we had our closest encounter with the friend's yacht and as they were the only one sailing in that direction, spotting the right white flappy things was easy:

As we approached Tarbert, the lovely old paddle steamer Waverley passed us:

Actually that is wrong. She was astern of us, was the give-way vessel, but just aimed for us as she headed towards the harbour too. Being nice people and knowing that she handles like a pig on ice, we eased up on the rpm and let her go ahead of us. She wriggled her way onto the dilapidated pier and disgorged loads of day trippers into the village. Not quite as bad as our usual liner curse as they all left very soon afterwards to head back towards Glasgow:

The berth we'd been allocated was, naturally, occupied. We find that a lot in Tarbert, folks kind of pick what they fancy it seems. Five hours of rather lovely scenery and all in all a chilled time.

Lots of work was going on in Tarbert to prepare for a new boat lift facility. No use for us as it is only for 25 tons, not lardy things like Nordhavns. The noise as big chunks of rock were tipped from trucks and then moved into place was pretty impressive, especially for folks moored nearby. Thankfully we were not. Health and safety wasn't priority #1 either - no safety boat out and about and these guys just stood in the water directing operations:

Nobody was in real danger of getting swept away though.  It seemed "sensible safe" rather than H&S compliant safe that would have cost way more.

Neil and Sarah on Iolar, with Barney bin Laden the Border Terrorist dog were most welcoming and we enjoyed dinner together in a local Italian inspired place that many moons ago was an acclaimed seafood restaurant. The next morning we dragged ourselves around the harbour and up to the ruins of the castle, with sone good views of double Nordhavn 47 trouble:

From higher up you get a nice vista over the harbour but miss out on our boat thanks to the trees:

Looking out to Loch Fyne makes you remember just how beautiful the area is and why we love coming here:

Neil and Sarah joined us on board for coffee, Barney had a great time shredding two of Izzy's old toys (sorry Izzy) that now reside in the bin, sans stuffing. His desire to go for other dogs is so strong that he tried to rush this toy dog wearing glasses in the opticians shop in the village. The glass door stopped him:

He learned however, the following day he walked past with that "I never did anything silly here" expression. 

Short hop to Campbeltown then some exploring

After all too short a sleep, we slowly roused ourselves and imbibed vast amounts of medicinal tea. That helped dull the lack of sleep feeling, even though it was decaffeinated. The weather was supposed to be dry for a few days so we fancied going to Campbeltown as there are some good cycling opportunities from there. 

The little pontoon area gets pretty busy so the crew called the very friendly and helpful Callum who said that several folks had headed off and there was some space for us. Anchor up (no kelp, just mud this time) and we headed off. You can see the "backtracking" from the anchorage to Campbeltown on our MarineTraffic route:

You will see how much closer to the land we went as it was daylight and dry - pot spotting was much simpler. Approaching the entrance to Campbeltown Bay:

and then heading towards the town, with Davaar island astern:

Despite being tired, we had a wake up shower then a good walk around town. Dear old Calmac still cannot run the summer only service here from Ardrossan which must hurt the local economy. The road trip around is quite a long one in comparison to sitting on a ferry:

There is an alternative involving taking a ferry to Arran, then another from Lochranza over to the Kintyre peninsular if you really want to.... The CalMac terminal here looks seriously sad - they haven't bothered to update their scruffily taped message  in the terminal that is now 3 years old either:

All very sad for "The Wee Toon" as it is known. The expansive harbour area now seems to survive on a few fishing boats and some timber exports. The building of wind turbine blades ended quite a while ago so that export traffic has gone. One of the pilot boats was out for maintenance:

and we were amazed to find two more laying around, waiting for something to do:

How a place that has so little commercial traffic needing a pilot justifies having 3 pilot boats is beyond us. Bet the pilotage charges are high!

We were happily berthed and on a good spot for photography from the fish quay opposite:

Several visitors were taking pictures of the boat, not sure if they were Nordhavn dreamers or just thought she was a strange looking thing amongst the yachts.

After a decent night's sleep we dug out the bikes and cycled along the waterside, heading south. Here is the southern side of Davaar island with the Isle of Arran in the background:

Not too bad really. Just to prove there is still some timber being cut and shipped out, this was a small stack along the roadside:

with that lovely fresh cut timber smell too. We headed back into town and then around the north side of the bay / loch. Some nice houses there and this hotel looking impressive:

We remember it as the place that poor Roland, the marine engineer who did lots of Nordhavn work, almost stayed in. We say almost as he got there stupidly late, fell asleep on the bed fully clothed and left again before breakfast to carry on repairing the Kintyre Express ferry. For the full story look at this previous blog post. We still miss Roland and the random phone chats we had so much.

Back in town, the pet shop has a sense of humour:

which is much needed as a lot of the shops are empty, as are two old hotels etc etc. Sad to see as the location is beautiful and the buildings show just how wealthy the area was in the past.  Now it seems as though the only things flourishing are coffee shops and hairdressers. Only one of these is of any interest to the less than hirsute captain.

Another cycle trip took us across the peninsular to Machrihanish:

We hadn't completed the 100 miles walk mentioned on the notice board. More like 6 miles on the bike. 

The area is one we've only heard about in the shipping forecast when they report on the weather conditions there. It hosts Campbeltown airport which has the odd flight to Glasgow but a long military history. Oddly, in the 1980s it was a designated emergency landing place for the US space Shuttle! That would have been quite something to see.

There is a glorious beach in the area:

and we imagined trying to prize Izzy the doglet off there when we want to leave - it would not go well. They also have a rather swish Golf Clubhouse that some kind insurers paid for after a fire in the old building:

with an amazing course running alongside the beach itself. Our friend Niall had  a moment of glory there, coming second in a big open competition. It is nice to know someone famous.

All in all a good stay and plenty of bike exercise too. 

As a post-script, this lovely image of our boat passing Toward Point was posted on Marinetraffic by the Nordhavn dreamer folks we met in Stornoway. Tom is a serious photographer as you can tell:

Thanks Tom, hope to see you again soon.

Maintenance news:

The fuel polishing filter was replaced and the main engine temperature sender connections got a clean up. A few little jobs ticked off the list. Hopefully the cleaning up of the contacts will stop the strange behaviour of the temperature gauge that happened on the last long trip. We often see a quick reduction or increase in temperature as the second higher temp thermostat in the cooling system opens or closes. This behaviour was a bit different, more like a poor connection. If it happens again we will drain a bit of coolant, spin out the sender and give the contacts a really good clean - it was hard to access them fully in situ - then a coat of Stabilant 22 on the pins to help.

The big drive belt on the main engine was checked for wear too - a bit of full frontal, naked John Deere for you:

This full frontal is unlikely to make much money on the Only Fans website we fear.

We also measured up the pulley and belt as an alternator swap is being considered. This one works fine but (there is always a but) it needs 100% field current and quite a few rpm to wake it up. That causes fun when the external regulator tries to swap from bulk charging to float. So, some investigation into a nice new Arco replacement to go with the Arco external regulator was investigated too. Might well be a 2027 project.

Ardfern, Gigha, Carradale Bay

We had a plan of sorts. Feeling it was time to head slowly south, we originally wanted to try and get into Port Ellen on Islay. The anchoring opportunities there are not great and there are only 2 berths in the little community run harbour we could use. However, we saw that they only accept boats up to 12 tons. That just rules us out. Only by a teeny few tons of course.....

The debate was - "should we go back inside the Mull of Kintyre for a while or potter down the Irish costs slowly". Decision was to go back inside the Mull for a while, then Norn Iron, then see what the weather allows.

The next decision was when do we go round the Mull itself. Weather and tide times are ultra important there. The first part of the plot was easy enough, take a fair tide and anchor off Gigha. So we did, only the southerly wind was against the tide and made it quite a bumpy trip, nodding into the short steep waves. At least the 10am departure time was civilised. 

As we got to Gigha and dropped the anchor, so the sun came out. A lovely afternoon disturbed only by the little ferry heading back and forth, easily visible from the pilothouse as you can see:

Idyllic spot. However, we then had to decide about rounding the Mull. The tides dictated doing that sometime after midnight or waiting until the following day, leaving Gigha around 10am. That is way nicer of course but, as always in life, other factors intervened. The wind was due to pick up in the early morning, around 3am and blow quite strongly from the NE. We did not want to be off Sanda, (the little Island SE of the Mull) with a strong following tide and the wind blowing over the top of it. This image from the tidal atlas tells you how strong the tides are in the area:

Up to 3.4 knots if we went around at the "optimum" time to speed up the trip.

Staying overnight where we were with a strong NEly wind building would mean a bit of a disturbed night  - as you can see, the eastern side of Gigha is not too well sheltered from the NE.

The decision was to head off later that evening, aim to get to the Mull just as the tide turned in our favour and be well round it by the time the strong NEly picked up.  So, the best option looked like the least pleasant one time-wise and scenery-wise. So be it. Here is the track we followed, showing the anchor time off Gigha and then the night time passage around the Mull and up to the Carradale Bay anchorage: 

As we headed off, it was still lovely and sunny, calm and very pleasant indeed. Patrick the penguin and his constant companion were enjoying the views:

and a nice pink sunset on the clouds added the the experience a bit later on, even if this picture doesn't look that "pink". You will have to take our word for it - the sky was lovely:

We didn't cut inshore around the Mull for two reasons. Firstly it gets bumpy in the confused water on the western side and secondly, we've seen a few pot markers inshore there before. The weather was turning murky and damp - the worst conditions for our FLIR (infra-red camera) to work in. Normally we can spot properly marked pots pretty well at night but in drizzle / fog / rain it becomes a different game. The image is very degraded. If you want to be a real propeller head on why, look at the manufacturer's information in this FLIR weblink. If you have a more normal life and no desire to be a crashing bore on the subject at parties,  then it is down to water droplets scattering and absorbing the infra-red radiation that the camera tries to detect.  Sure enough, the camera struggled big time in the drizzle and rain.

Our timing to get around Sanda island and begin to head north was pretty perfect. Before the tide picked up too much and the promised strong NE'ly winds kicked in:

You can see we were getting tidal help, just not rocket assistance at that stage by our speed over the ground. Sure enough, as forecast, the stronger gusts arrived but by then we were further north and the sea didn't have time to build that much before we headed into the anchorage. Again, we stayed further offshore than you would in daylight, just in case of pot trouble. We anchored up in about 6 metres of water, near a lone yacht and tucked well into the bay for some lovely shelter from the waves that were building in the sound itself. You can see how nicely sheltered the bay is from the North, North East winds:

and we anchored pretty much where the little anchor symbol is.

The only image we can share of our arrival is this one, of the GPS position that we took as a reference against dragging the anchor:

Not terribly exciting we know but it was pitch black outside. 

We pinned the stabilisers, killed the engine and most of the navigation gear and turned on the anchor watch alarm on the Furuno kit. We then fired up the Furuno app on the phone which we can take down to the cabin with us to repeat the alert if we are dragging. Finally the navigation lights went off, the anchor light on and it was time to collapse into a welcoming bed. 4am is not our preferred bedtime we hasten to add. The trip was 18 hours including the time anchored off Gigha - tiring, but it worked out as well as it possibly could.  

Maintenance news:

Whilst pumping fuel through the polishing filter into the supply tank, the captain noticed that it was slowing down a bit. It needs  a new filter in the Racor device. That will get done when there is somewhere to dispose of the old diesel soaked one. We use quite a fine filter in there and as they pick up dirt in the fuel, they get even more clogged and the effective micron rating drops so they are harder and harder to pump fuel through.

One oddity - the big magnetron radar was used, it worked fine on longer ranges as always, showing the land of the Mull nicely when zoomed out to around a 6 mile range or more. However, when it was zoomed in to around 2 miles, the coastline became very indistinct. Turning off the automatic gain, sea state and rain clutter controls and winding the gain right up helped but it was not as it should be. Grr. We switched to the other digital radar and were happy we had a backup. Something to investigate..... 

Kerrera to Ardfern

A civilised departure time, no rain and very little wind. What could possibly go wrong? We started out on the flybridge, enjoying the lovely views of the mainland and Kerrera as we threaded our way between them. There are a couple of these old MoD ships on mooring buoys just off Kerrera and we wonder just what they get used for now, if anything. This one was the tidiest:

If you fancy one, there is a nice example for sale on Rightboat at the moment. Quite cheap too. Might be a tad rusty of course and we have no idea how you'd get on sourcing parts for the elderly but lovely Lister Blackstone diesel in the engine room.

We duly headed down towards the narrow, shallow route between the islands of Fladda and Luing just as the rain started. Trying to move inside, cover up the flybridge instruments etc whilst making sure we stayed in the deeper wet bit was amusing - timing of the rain shower was not great. Here is the little island of Fladda from the pilothouse:

and the little tower on the tiny island opposite it:

We managed to avoid the rocky bits but once you are through there, the whirlpools take over big time. The boat gets thrown around quite a lot and you get some great acceleration at times. We were doing 1475 rpm, power for around 6.2 knots when we saw this:

It actually went up to 12.1 knots for a brief time.  We were, in Nordhavn terms, flying. As we headed down the sound of Luing, we were being followed by Capt Rae in Albatross who had popped out from an anchorage in Loch Spelve, also taking advantage of the fair tide. He was heading further south so our tracks diverged as we approached the Corryvreckan area:

We thought it would be nice to get a picture of the mighty Albatross as she was passing the infamous Corryvreckan with the equally infamous Capt Rae at the controls. Only she was too distant for even the zoom lens on the proper camera to picture properly:

She doesn't look as mighty in this picture but it does give you an idea of the scale of the scenery in Scotland and why cruising here is very special indeed.

Here is the route we took, it isn't detailed enough to show the many wriggles caused by the whirlpools in the Sound of Luing:

Naturally, as we approached Ardfern, it started to rain again. We called the Yacht Harbour and they asked us to "stand-by".  Sure enough some folks who were supposed to leave had not so they needed to drag a yacht along the visitor pontoon to make space for us. By then it was really raining. We were so happy, especially as the yachts should have left by mid-day and this was well afterwards. So, we berthed, cuddled up to another yacht as requested only for it, and the one that had to be dragged out of the way, leave soon afterwards. On the South coast of England they would have been chased out / charged extra etc etc. All so much more relaxed and so much nicer here.

We had decided on a berth not anchoring as it was our anniversary and we were going to eat out. The only gig in town, the Galley of Lorne was visited once more. A young lad on his first day was the waiter and he ended up prefacing most visits to the table with "I'm sorry but". Despite that, it was all OK.

We had a full day there and managed a nice waterside walk, down to the Craignish moorings area:

It is a very lovely area. The cinnamon and cranberry scones in the Ardfern shop / cafe aren't bad either.