Blue Moon's trip around the UK

It had never occurred to me that Scotland had a most southerly point since all of it is so very far north, but it does and this is it. The Mull of Galloway, of which I am sure you’ve heard, has a fearsome reputation amongst sailors who are generally advised not to go anywhere near it. In fact one of my pilot books actually suggests always going to Scotland via Northern Ireland as it’s safer. It’s clearly quite a thing around here for land folk as well as sailors, there not being an awful lot else, and the car park on top was packed with bank holiday trippers getting as far south as they could in the hopes of a sun tan, I suppose. Little chance of that, as you can see, but I wasn’t complaining as you will also notice (in spite of my hopeless attempt at a panorama) that it was the definitive flat calm, a painted ocean.

Given that one of the dangerous-waves-avoidance strategies is to go as close as you dare to the cliffs I thought I’d give it a go in 0 knots. I was rewarded with good views into sea caves and the insides of the largest foghorn I have ever seen, but decided that if it was blowing dangerously hard I would also take the broader view and go via Ireland. However, I am beginning to get quite worried about passing so many legendarily terrifying headlands in such benign conditions: I am sure I am storing up bad Karma and will find myself next year approaching Muckle Flugga with sunshine and a force 3 westerly only for it to turn into a northerly gale on arrival and dash me onto the rocks.

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Today, however, had generally improved since first thing. I had hoped to spend the night in a bay on the other side of the Mull called East Tarbet Bay (my fifth, I think) which is recommended if the wind’s in the right direction so you can time your nip-around-the-Mull-in-slack-water to perfection as it’s only ten minutes away.

The wind, of course, wasn’t in the right direction so I had instead anchored off a village called Port William on the other side of the bay, which has the kind of harbour you can only get into if your family has lived and fished there since this part of the world was owned by Norway, and then only at High Water. The pilot book promised a snug anchorage off it in Easterlies but it was lying: it was sheltered enough but so much swell came in that it was like trying to sleep on one of those rocking pirate ships they have at Disneyland, albeit without the screams. I then had the fun of crossing Luce Bay, which is the large bit of water south of Stranraer which I had been looking at on charts for years because it seemed so oddly desolate. Turns out the reason why is that it’s one of those death trap bays where more or less wherever the wind blows from it sweeps into the bay, making it treacherous until they invented reliable engines, added to which the tide goes round and round it in a big circle. As if that wasn’t enough, the whole thing is designated as a firing range, but having tried several advertised methods of contacting range control and only getting through to someone who said he was at Porton Down and didn’t know where Luce Bay was, I decided that since it was Bank Holiday Sunday I would take a chance and sail straight across.

I am still alive to tell the tale, and I am glad I ventured across Luce Bay because I came across the rocks which have won hands-down the national prize for daft rock names: Big Scare and his friend Little Scare, together – yes – The Scares. Well I’m sorry, but surely rocks should have names that actually warn people off, like Black Rock and Devil’s Bottom and The Manacles? I spent the night wondering if Little Scare was going to tiptoe across Luce Bay and climb into the cockpit and shout Boo! at me. Rather than keep away, their names tempted me closer so I could take their picture:

And so to East Tarbet Bay which would have been a wonderful place to spend the night: entirely sheltered from the prevailing winds and handy as you like for rounding The Mull. Nothing there except glorious Galloway views, cows with belts, and Glaswegians with caravans. Yet another reason to be a smug boat-owner: if you’d driven all this way to the ends of the Scottish earth to enjoy the desolation and found 50 people lighting barbecues and sitting in stripey chairs you’d surely be disappointed. I just looked the other way, ate a World Champion scotch pie from Kircudbright, and waited for the tide to turn.

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Finally on to Portpatrick, which I had only heard about because the garrulous marina manager at Carrickfergus last year had waxed lyrical about how his idea of a good weekend was to go to Portpatrick and back, it being only 20-odd miles across the North Channel. This had been bothering me though, as it was the only place to stop on that coast. It being a bank holiday weekend I was worried the harbour would be jammed with revelling Irishmen, so I had phoned the Harbour Master earlier to see if there was room. “Och no,” he actually did say, “they’re all away home. You’ll have the harbour to yourself!” And he was right:

The village was jumping with bank holiday crowds come to gawp at the sea and Ireland on the other side, and of course the boat in the harbour, but the only accents I heard were Scottish and – rather peculiarly, but obvious when you think about it – Cumbrian. I bought myself the worst value ice cream (£3 for a tiny scoop of Carte D’or from a tub) to try to get into the bank holiday spirit, but it kept raining which made it hard, and several families of what looked to me like starlings came and shouted at me because I had thoughtlessly moored my boat in front of the nests they’d made in the harbour wall. Given that they had just got their harbour back from the 30 Irish boats that must have been there this morning, I thought that was a bit rich and growled back at them, much like Big Scare might do in a pop-up book. They went away but got their own back later by preparing breakfast for their chicks on the foredeck at 0430 and not tidying up afterwards.

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