Tom, one of the other boat owners at Kip Marina, had very kindly offered us the use of his mooring buoy at the top of Loch Riddon.
We cruised slowly up the Kyles of Bute, past Rothesay on towards the narrow entrance to Loch Riddon.
The depth gauge was reading about 45 metres and suddenly went down to 5 metres, for about five seconds, and then back to 45 metres.
This is a fairly common problem in this area and fortunately one that we had been warned about.
We had just been undertaken by a submarine!
We had lunch at anchor in Caladh Harbour, which is a very small natural sheltered spot behind an island and almost totally enclosed. In 3 metres of water it felt like a puddle compared to what we are getting used to in this area. When we arrived at the top of the Loch we spent 5 minutes looking for Grand Cru’s mooring buoy. They all have the owner’s boat’s name on but wind and tide make reading them rather tricky without actually colliding with the buoy. However it was well worth it because, once safely moored, we were able to admire the wonderful scenery and bob gently in the peace and quite in this undeveloped area. However, the weather deteriorated during the night and we spent an anxious few hours wondering if the single piece of rope holding the buoy would be strong enough to compete with the high winds trying to push us against the lee shore!
Tom, one of the other boat owners at Kip Marina, had very kindly offered us the use of his mooring buoy at the top of Loch Riddon. We cruised slowly up the Kyles of Bute, past Rothesay on towards the narrow entrance to Loch Riddon. The depth gauge was reading about 45 metres and suddenly went down to 5 metres, for about five seconds, and then back to 45 metres.