Loch Ranza, Arran

The forecast for today was some sun and, more importantly, less wind. There are only really three places for us to moor Jomima on Arran and none of them have a marina and they are all likely to give us a sleepless night in high winds. The closest point is Loch

Ranza and that is where we headed for. We managed to find a buoy, some distance from the all too regular ferry and its wash. We then lowered our tender and headed for the shore and a visit to the relatively new, and only, distillery on Arran. This proved to be a very pleasant visit and a suitable bottle was purchased. After a tasting we wobbled back to the dingy and

rescued it from the rising tide. The wind kindly dropped completely and we were able to enjoy the incredible sunset before heading for bed.

Inveraray

Something that you may be unaware of is that Ann likes buses. Give her a bus timetable and she will be quiet for hours. The buses through Tarbert go all of the way to Glasgow – but only three times each day. The midday one was chosen to take us as far as Inveraray at the head of Loch Fyne. This gave us chance to visit Inveraray jail, which is now a

museum. This was very well done and it showed how awful jails were 200 years ago. The day improved when we visited Inveraray Castle, which is owned by the Duke of Argyle – who is head of the Clan Campbell. The day improved even more when, after deciding we needed a meal before the 19:50 bus back, I managed to locate the Loch Fyne Hotel. This is owned by the sister company to the Loch Fyne oyster bar chain of restaurants. A fish slate, followed by Venison and sticky toffee pudding – washed down by an Australian Shiraz. An excellent way to finish a wet, but enjoyable, day.

Tarbert, Loch Fyne

The weather forecast, for the next couple of days, was rain and more rain plus a blast of wind for good measure. We therefore decided that a couple of nights in a sheltered harbour was called for. We chose East Tarbert. Very old fashioned and, at that time, recovering from a very busy weekend holding a major sailing regatta, it seemed tired. We managed to stock up with food, and the locals were friendly, so we decided to stay another night.

Loch Riddon

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!

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.

Isle of Bute

Today was a day, for me, to catch up on my jobs. I had managed to service the port engine before Ann arrived at Inverkip. The starboard engine now needed oil and filter change and also the diesel filters needed changing. That involves removing most of the interior flooring and furniture in the

middle of the boat. So, Ann was going out in the car by herself and chose to visit the Isle of Bute. This was largely because it will be a difficult place for us to stay overnight because there is major construction work going on in the harbour area.

Ann thoroughly enjoyed visiting this beautiful island. There was very little traffic and she was able to visit both the largest town (the only town!) of Rothesay and also the eastern end of the island. It was an interesting adventure – and I managed to get my dirty jobs completed.

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.