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.