..in fact, nothing to laugh at at all.
It was always one of my main concerns in writing a blog that there would be, to paraphrase Vladimir Ilyich writing about a very different experience, whole weeks where nothing happens in contrast with the days (sometimes hours in my case) where weeks happen. I’m pleased to say that in the last two weeks nothing of any consequence has happened, other than spending good time with friends and family, none of whom are cruising sailors, so if anything truly hilarious and blog-worthy had happened it would probably have been a bad thing as it would have spoiled their trips. However, I realise that the absence of blog posts could prompt concern in some quarters (my radio distress menu doesn’t yet have a category for ‘unable to think of blog topic’) so here comes an update. And astonishingly these guests were treated to what will have to pass for Scotland’s Summer of 2024, or at least a day of it each.
Dominic and Mia may not be cruising sailors but they are both very fine racers – I suspect Mia and Maxwell will quite soon be even better than their Dad, and that’s saying something, so I was very concerned that the September calms for which the Oban area seems famous wouldn’t materialise during their brief stay: neither of them had schlepped across the country to spend 2½ days motoring. Luckily it was more the reverse: Oban kindly waited for them to walk from the bus stop to the boat via the wonderful seafood shack (where you can buy a cooked lobster for £21 – yes, £21! Cooked! Fresh that morning!) before unleashing the kind of black clouds and torrential rain that it’s even more famous for.
Poor Mia – given the helm of a boat three times the size of her usual craft she had all of 20 minutes before the wind had gone from 8 to 28 knots in the blink of an eye and the rain was hurtling down her neck from every angle. She bravely sat this out for long enough to provide evidence that she had sailed in Scotland and that it rains a lot before handing her Dad the helm and retreating under the sprayhood. I suppose after a summer of being coached by him it will have made a nice change for Dom to be put on the helm and told what to do by someone else. Mainly ‘please don’t gybe right now’ and ‘we should miss that rock if the wind doesn’t shift round any more’, so not that relevant to winning races in a Cadet.
Our reward for this madness was to walk up the ex-railway track from lovely Linnhe Marine to the Old Inn where – third time lucky – I had managed to secure a table to eat steak and chips. It’s pretty much all they sell, and famous for good reason: sat in what looked like a candlelit stone barn Mia correctly observed that we could have been dining with Vikings, although I doubt they had perfected chips the way the pub has. And it only rained once or twice on the walk back.
Luckily Mia was also familiar with Balamory so the following morning we were headed to Tobermory to see the real thing. More luckily still for her there were two foolish adults on board who at least pretended not to mind beating 30 miles in the rain, so she could watch the hills go by without leaving her sleeping bag. Upstairs Dom showed his helming skills apply to any size of boat by beating up the Sound of Mull with only four tacks, damn him, and the rain began to offer at least the possibility of a few minutes of dry each hour.
This was handy as we had a heavy schedule of shopping and fish and chips on arrival in Tobermory, and it was more enjoyable in the periods when it wasn’t raining.
Two nights on rainy pontoons and it was time to show what proper Scottish cruising is all about – and for once the weather obliged: sunshine, gentle following breeze, spinnaker back down the Sound of Mull followed by a nice windshift to reach across to Kerrera where we picked a tiny bay among the rocks out of sight of the other yachts. Paddleboard out, curry on, remote islets explored, sunset enjoyed…
…and only half an hour from Oban so the guests could make their bus next morning and still have time to get smoothies from Costa while I chaired a very good-natured meeting of locals to debate the best place to change buses to get to Glasgow Airport (the answer, rather disappointingly, was Glasgow).
I had a day off before welcoming the next guest and, making the most of the unexpected sunshine, I headed over to Loch Spelve. Last year I spent three days there sheltering from a gale, watching non-stop torrential rain; this year it looked more like Turkey in midsummer.
I anchored off the mussel farm where you can pick up a fresh 2.5kg bag for the ridiculous sum of £2.50 put in a Nescafé jar. Mouth watering at the prospect and impressed by Dom’s paddleboarding skills I didn’t bother with the dinghy but jumped fully clothed onto the paddleboard and headed for the jetty. Disaster! The paddle came apart in my hand and in I went. It turned out that Dom is such a skilled paddleboarder he’d not even noticed it was loose. Dripping wet, I was relieved that the mussel farmers had all gone home, but their crop was of course the freshest I had ever eaten, although even I couldn’t quite manage the full 2.5kg.
Next guest was my nephew Red, who makes up for lack of any real sailing experience with enthusiasm and eagerness to learn. This was just as well as the weather played the same trick on him too: he was flung from the blazing heat of a skateboarding festival in Bristol to Oban’s finest downpour – yet again waiting until 20 minutes after casting off. This duly became a sort of drizzly mist and then thick fog, which is something sensible yachtsmen are rightly scared of. We had made our way to the Garvellach Islands where you can go ashore and look at a monastery that was ruined by Vikings 1400 years ago. This was a truly eery experience with visibility 50 metres or less, and a passing ferry blowing its foghorn like the textbooks tell you to. I was a bit concerned that we might have to spend the night with the remains of St Columba’s mother, reputedly buried on the island, but luckily the fog lifted just enough to see if we were about to hit anything as we made our way back to the mainland.
Visibility was less of an issue on the way to our destination, Loch Melfort, as it involved going through the Cuan Sound, notorious for being only about 100m wide so we could easily see both sides at the same time. Being narrow it also channels the tide through at over six knots and tries its best to push you onto various nasty rocks just as you make a 90 degree turn half way through. I was relieved to see two other yachts making for it at the same time, which suggested I had calculated slack water correctly, and nothing too scary happened beyond it coming on to rain even harder. Given that we were both pretty wet and cold by this point, it was very comforting to head up to the hamlet of Kimelford where we could tie onto a pontoon and walk ashore to hot showers – luckily it stopped raining as we arrived as we had to stand outside for half an hour while a cheery woman called Charlotte cleaned them.
As with Dom and Mia, the worst was over on Day One as the following morning it just rained now and then. It also blew now and then from a full 180 degree range of directions, which entertained Red on the helm watching his uncle hoist, drop, furl, unfurl, gybe and gybe again various sails on the way up to our next destination, another loch I had wanted to visit but never got around to. Loch Creran turns out to be even nicer than Loch Melfort as it has cracking mountains as a backdrop, along with a narrow tide-race entrance that made Cuan Sound look like the slow lane.
Loch Creran’s main attraction for us though was a pub at the head of it with visitors’ moorings which, unlike the pub in Kimelford, was (a) serving food and (b) not a mile and half away. This gave Red a totally unrealistic view of what cruising in Scotland is like – sitting on the balcony, looking at the boat, eating delicious food in the sunshine.
As if that was not unrealistic enough, the following day was what is technically termed ‘champagne sailing’ – a fun Force 4 beat up to Loch a Choire for lunch followed by a very speedy Force 5 spinnaker run back past Lismore and a fast reach across to Oban, all in blazing sunshine. Nothing broke, no ferries were inconvenienced, the novice helmsman avoided every possible mishap and all the rocks, and we felt we’d earned what is also technically termed a slap-up fish supper, although this one was a bit classier than those envisaged in The Beano.
And so to the least interesting part of the entire blog. I now had three days with no guests, wall to wall sunshine but also no wind, and while I could have motored 50 miles to, say, Iona and the same 50 back again, I decided that after such intensive hosting I had earned some time off. So I sailed slowly in not much breeze to the surprisingly delightful Loch Feochan which hardly anybody visits because it has an even more tortuous tide-beset entrance than Loch Creran, and also I suspect because no-one knows how to pronounce it. Another loch ticked. There are very few left now.
Then I sailed even more slowly but with the fierce tide (and eventually with the engine as the wind died completely) down the Sound of Luing to a tiny anchorage behind some islands in Loch Craignish which I had entirely to myself and some curious seals. I did absolutely nothing but relax in the silent surroundings and enjoy 24 hours of flat calm.
Finally I roused myself and motored all of 15 miles up the Sound of Shuna, where I played my ace card. I really wanted to visit the famous Bridge Over the Atlantic which links the excellently named Isle of Seil (pronounced to rhyme) with the mainland and enjoy a drink in the famous pub called the Trigh an Truish (I believe pronounced Try and Troosh but I was too scared to try, let alone troosh). The drawback was that you get there by anchoring in the famous and hopelessly overcrowded Puilladobhrain anchorage and walking over the hill. This I couldn’t face on a hot calm Saturday evening, it would be packed with vast yachts. So instead I picked up a mooring at the very friendly Balvicar Boatyard three miles away where I dinghied ashore, enjoyed a pleasant chat with the owner who was doing something very skilful with a piece of wood, and enjoyed a walk up the island over the hills to the same pub.
I even got to count the 12 boats in the anchorage considered crowded with eight, and to see a procession of yachtsmen trooping up the path to the pub. While they went back to worry about whether the hooligans next door were going to swing into them in the night, I strolled back across the only golf course I have seen where there is seaweed on the greens to enjoy a silent night under the stars.
Smug? Yes. Relaxed? Yes. Good blog fodder? Absolutely not. Don’t worry though, the weather is back to normal now. Thick fog (I even used my own foghorn this morning on the way back to Oban, amazed I could even find it) followed by a freezing cold northerly breeze. Poor Roger: he’s coming tomorrow for a week that I promised would be wafting around delightful Scottish islands with deserted anchorages. Instead we’re going to be huddled in the cabin watching gales lash rain into, and all too often through, the windows while desperately heading South when we can. The summer has abruptly come to an end, and it’s time for Liverpool. Please don’t expect a blog post from the middle of the Irish Sea, I’ll do it when I get home in a couple of weeks. I hope.
Blue Moon's trip around the UK 
Leave a reply to Dominic Stanislaus Cancel reply