Lamlash, Arran

The journey from Campbeltown to Arran, on the west coast of Scotland, was proving uneventful. Jomima was handling the slight swell with ease. There was little wind and the sun was shining. We were planning to visit some friends, who had retired to Arran, and we had been unable to visit them for several years. There are no marinas on Arran and the nearest recommended safe place to moor was Lamlash Bay, which is sheltered behind Holy Island. We have never anchored overnight so we were pleased to see some visitor’s mooring buoys provided by the local yacht club – even though they appeared to be fairly close together. It was early on a Saturday afternoon and most of the buoys were vacant. So we picked up one fairly near the middle of the line of moorings and, for extra security, attached Jomima to the buoy with two ropes.

We telephoned our friends and they invited us to have dinner with them and volunteered to collect us from the pier. We lowered our tender and set off for the end of the pier. I had checked the tides and knew that the tide was going out. I carefully moored the tender, with a long rope, to allow for the rise and fall of the tide as we were likely to be away for about six hours.

When we returned to the tender, she was floating comfortably at the end of the pier and the tide was coming in. We returned to Jomima and raised the tender onto the davits. After admiring the line of yachts, that had filled all of the other vacant buoys, we headed for bed.

At three in the morning Ann woke me to say that she was unable to sleep because something was banging against the hull. By this time the tide was out again and the swell was making Jomima roll slightly. I quickly put on a few clothes, and my life jacket, and made my way outside. It was slack water and the mooring buoy was bumping against the hull. I tightened and adjusted the mooring ropes so that the buoy was immediately below the pulpit and no longer able to hit Jomima’s bow. I then returned to the cabin and noticed in the moonlight that the other sailing boats were at a different angle to the tide – probably because of their keels. I then returned to my bed for some sleep.

Unfortunately the swell increased and it was now causing Jomima to roll badly. Alternatively, when she swung further round, the waves banged very noisily under the bathing platform which was behind our bed. Ann and I were now wide awake and we decided that a cup of tea would probably be the best solution to our problems. I went to switch the gas on and noticed that the next yacht was now very close indeed to our side rails. I dashed outside, with very little on, reached over our rails and pushed the yacht’s pulpit away from our port side. By now the tide was fully out and this had caused the swing ark of the, already close together mooring buoys to increase greatly. Also, being a different shape to the other moored yachts, we had adopted a different angle to the tide and slight wind. The yacht, which was still in total darkness, headed for the side of Jomima again. Ann took over fending off with our boat hook while I prepared to leave this, by now, extremely uncomfortable mooring.

We had not put to sea in the dark before but managed to do so in double quick time. There was an anchorage marked on the charts near by and, by moonlight, we headed for that area and dropped anchor. I imagined that I had thought of everything but, from now on, I will avoid buoys that look too close together. Also, as we are no longer ‘anchoring virgins’ we will seriously consider that as an option in future.