Back to Scotland

The start of the second part of our Scottish cruise this year was unfortunately delayed by two days of high winds. We drove back to Inverkip on Monday and had planned to set off on Tuesday. However, two days of high winds and heavy rain meant that I had no excuse and had to tackle one of the indoor jobs: repairing the heads. For those of you not familiar with boating terms, the heads are the toilets. We had a leaking pipe and this turned out to be a split in the 4 metre long by 1.5 inch diameter plastic pipe. I appreciate that I have mixed metric and imperial dimensions here but that is how you have to buy it.

No photographs, but I can report that after a three hour struggle we now have a new pipe and normal operation has been resumed.

Rest Day in Kip Marina

The mooring that we have, at present, in Kip Marina is rather splendid. Jomima (third from right) is moored to a pontoon that is nearly twice her length and the boats nearby are magnificent. Tomorrow we plan to leave Kip Marina for a while so we generally cleaned her and prepared for our

journey around the islands in the Clyde area. Now full of food, fuel and water we are prepared to visit more remote areas where these things are less available.

One of the nicer things that happened today was the hatching of a signet to two swans that had nested very near the entrance to our pontoon. They apparently nest there every year despite the general noise and problems with high tides. Isn’t nature wonderful.

The day dawned wet and windy and we decided to return to Kip Marina, if the wind abated, so that we could restock and I could finish servicing the engines. After lunch the wind dropped sufficiently for us to make the 45 minute journey to Kip. Most of the visitor’s berths were occupied, by the bank holiday boaters, but the berthing master very kindly found us a berth on their pontoon for larger boats, where we moored in state surrounded by magnificent boats up to twice the length and ten times the price of Jomima.

Arrival at Inverkip

The Glasgow police will not let wide loads travel along the M8 through Glasgow until 10.00 am. So, unusually, the driver did not leave at his normal 6:00 am and we had a lie in and finally left at 8:00 am. The view from the very high cab of the truck was magnificent as we headed north up the M6, A74 and M74. The journey through Glasgow passed without encountering too much traffic as a result we were slightly early for the escort vehicle. After a brief spell in a lay-by I was handed a two way radio by the escort driver and asked to listen to instructions. We were then able to follow a white van, with flashing lights, through the centre of Greenock and all of the rest of the journey to Kip Marina.

After waiting for one hour for the crane to return a yacht to the water, after having had a new propeller fitted (I never did find out how he lost his last one), Jomima was lowered into the waters of the Firth of Clyde ready for the start of this year’s adventure.