Oban Marina

To get from the marina into Oban town requires a trip on their water taxi. This worked quite well but only ran every hour; sometimes it was full so it was necessary to wait for the boat to make another round trip of 20 minutes. Fortunately, the sun has made a rare appearance and blessed us with its presence. While in Oban, we managed to find time to complete a tour of the Oban distillery. Not the best we have tried but Ann managed to find another of that group’s brands (Dalwhinnie) so we did not return empty handed.

That evening we dined in the marina’s restaurant and enjoyed some excellent seafood. My fish platter contained a wonderful array with virtually no space left on the plate for veg.

Oban Bound

Finally, the wind subsided a little but the black clouds remained. We therefore decided that it was time to leave and, after much boat shuffling, we squeezed into the sea lock and left the safe calm waters of the canal. There was a sailing race going on as we left the lock and this meant that, as powerboats, we had to give way to sail. However, it would have been a brave person that tried to cross the path of the heavy wooden sailing boats that were making maximum use of the remaining wind.

The journey to Oban Marina, which is actually on the Island of Kerrera opposite Oban, took us though some magnificent scenery. We firstly headed towards Jura and then turned to starboard (right) up Shuna Sound. When we reached Seil Island, we travelled through the narrow Cuan Sound channel and into the Firth of Lorn. We were then able to see the impressive coast of Mull as we again turned to starboard and headed up Kerrera Sound to the marina.