Committed readers will recall that my first guest of the year is not a yachtsman. Nor, indeed, a sailor of any kind at all. David is, or I will from now on correctly say was, uniquely unqualified to accompany me on a boat anywhere. He is, however, a very old friend and not known for sitting back and letting life pass him by, so, whilst I was astonished when he asked back in the deepest winter if he could join me for a few days, I was fairly convinced that he would throw himself into this new world of sailing with gusto and probably not a little skill, as he is one of those annoying people who succeed by default, whatever the challenge. He, however, was less convinced, and in the gradual build-up seemed very worried that he would variously be sea-sick, a liability, in the way, or perhaps just bored.
In an attempt not to ruin a friendship, then, I had designed what I hoped would be a simple itinerary: a gentle waft up the sheltered Firth of Clyde, a simple motor through the Crinan Canal and a nice potter from there up to Oban. There was even an option, should the weather be unusually benign, to head out to Iona and tick some unticked boxes.
For a few days, the weather tried its best to ruin my plan. First, it dialed down the temperature: day one in Ardrossan had been absurdly hot; day two when David arrived was as if someone had poured a bucket of ice over the proceedings. Even the locals couldn’t help commenting on how cold it was, and since everyone had put on shorts based on the previous day I was treated to some real Scottish hardiness in the biting wind. And biting it was: it had turned round to the north and was blowing a good 25 knots so in spite of David’s best efforts to arrive at an improbably early hour we spent the afternoon sampling the delights of Ardrossan rather than launching ourselves into a 40 mile beat. The next day promised to be a flat calm so a good chance to show him the ropes.
Next day did start a flat calm but within the hour the wind played its next card: first 10 knots, then back to calm, then 20. And, of course, on the nose: from the north, very cold indeed, and coming over the mountains meant that it was shifting and bending back and forth like a crazed weathercock. David was introduced to winches, and the sudden requirement to pull very hard on a mysterious blue rope whenever I, or Raymond, decided that a tack was in order. The wind got stronger, and a whole new range of variously coloured ropes came into play as we took a reef in. By now we were past Arran and past lunch too, so I took a chance and offered David the wheel while I made some rolls. Beating into a very shifty and gusty 20 knot breeze is something that should by rights take a lifetime’s experience, but David seemed to need only the most cursory explanation of telltales (other, actual non-sailors: bits of wool at the front of the jib that are supposed to tell you when you’re at the optimum angle to the wind. In reality their mission in life is to confuse you) and he was off showing Raymond how to do it. The sun came out, the tide turned in our favour, David picked up a couple of extraordinary windshifts and we arrived at Ardrishaig, the entry to the canal, half an hour early. Coming alongside a pontoon in a stiff breeze and tying the boat up also seemed to hold few challenges. I was jealous now of his speed of picking up sailing skills.
Arriving at the Crinan Canal early is, of course, completely pointless, as those who were reading the blog two years ago, before it won any awards, will recall Three Peters in a Boat (in a Canal). Not much seemed to have changed in the two years since, to the extent that everyone we met seemed resigned to various levels of disappointment. Ours was made complete by the entire area being deserted, no-one answering any of the phone numbers or VHF except for the lock-keeper at Crinan at the other end, who cheerfully if unhelpfully said “oh, I expect they’re up to something. I’m sure they’ll be along shortly.” If shortly means an hour, then she was spot on, because at five o’clock, the time the canal is supposed to shut, two of this year’s intake of Crinan Canal Girls (yes, amazingly they have not hired anyone not female and under 22) arrived and spent a whole hour locking us and the two other boats who had arrived behind us into the basin ready – they promised – for a start at 0900 sharp the following day.
0900 came and went, and with it came Joe the Pilot. We had enjoyed his company so much two years ago I couldn’t imagine doing the canal without him, and I had banked without David also picking up the basics of handling lines through locks in the space of five minutes, but it was worth having him with us just to hear his views, and those of various other locals who seemed to congregate around him, of what was wrong with the canal management these days.
They had plenty of time to expound their theories as it was at least 1000 before the girls reappeared, and 1030 before we were on our way. Things looked worryingly familiar too: they even tried the same ‘three boats into a lock made for two’ trick before giving up and sending us on our way along with a cheery group of Lancastrians on a shared club boat.
The further we got from Ardrishaig the more in control things seemed to be, and in due course we made it through to Crinan where, confronted by yet more wind, we agreed to spend the night in the basin and take our chances in the morning.
This time I had confounded the hotel by booking a table in their seafood bar, so they had to serve us dinner without any argument at all. In fact, they seemed to have upped their culinary game and we took full advantage.
That was the last of the big wind, which meant that the following day we could tick two large unticked boxes in the shape of Iona, which I had sailed past without stopping, and Tinker’s Hole, which is one of those anchorages you read about in every Yachting Monthly article about sailing in Scotland, but I had simply not had the chance to visit, as both are on the rather exposed South West coast of Mull.
David might have been expecting a quiet day of motoring to help digest the dinner, but unfortunately for him we locked out with the Lancastrians who had also announced a plan to visit Tinker’s Hole. This spelled trouble and no relaxation: first, it is a famously tiny anchorage so getting there first would mean we could choose the best spot, and second, I can’t let any boat, whichever part of the country its crew comes from, get anywhere before me. So it was that we spent the first few hours motoring full tilt in an attempt to get into better tide before them (and annoyingly failing), followed by the rest of the day sailing as fast and intensively as possible. This even extended to putting up the assymetric spinnaker and making David trim it. One of the harder parts of sailing, especially in a very variable breeze and a lumpy sea, this again seemed to come irritatingly naturally.
The combination of skilled spinnaker trimming and judicious use of engine in the calm bits and reefs in the suddenly windy bits meant that we stole a good march on our competition, only to see three or four other yachts heading down the side of Mull, all apparently heading the same way as us. Lunch was a hurried sandwich as we focused on squeezing every bit of speed out of the boat, and were rewarded by arriving ahead of the fleet, behind only a very large American yacht who had been motoring all the way at about eight knots. He had, of course, taken the best spot but we managed to wriggle close inshore and anchor in the lee of a rocky cliff; David picked up another skill – of motoring into a tiny spot surrounded by rocks so that I could drop the anchor on some white sand rather than seaweed at the second attempt – without any instruction other than a vague wave at where the throttle was.
Expecting the hordes to arrive at any minute, we quickly blew up the dinghy and I ticked another box by – for the first time – rowing a rope ashore and tying it around one of the very pointy rocks to keep us in the shelter and away from the other boats anchored around the pool.
We patted ourselves on the back, put the kettle on and waited for the pool to fill up. Nothing happened. No-one came. I even looked at one of the AIS apps to see where they all were: inexplicably they had all anchored in one of the bays further East, where I was sure they would regret it when the wind swung South in the night as it was forecast to do.
Tinkers Hole was as spectacular as reported, especially with only two boats there, and only really let down by its silly name. It is a very small pool, surrounded by rocks, in the middle of nowhere at the very far end of Mull. As the sun set, the rocks near us turned shades of pink and we would have sat in the cockpit all evening looking at the stars and enjoying the silence were it not for the still quite strong wind and the fact that it was now below five degrees.
For once the wind did drop overnight as forecast, which meant that we could tick box number three by giving the new outboard a proper workout taking us in the dinghy through a maze of rocks and across the open Sound of Iona to look at the abbey. Luckily we had a tide to catch which gave us the perfect excuse to do the whole thing in 40 minutes, which was about all we felt it deserved. Undoubtedly a significant place for Christianity in Scotland it was disappointing to find that the village was mainly made up of B&Bs and cafes while the monks – as I had already read, so was prepared – had been replaced by bearded evangelicals in checked shirts. Even the abbey itself, although using some original stone, was mainly built in the 1930s by a preacher from Glasgow, so we didn’t feel too bad about heading back to the boat before the ticket office had finished processing the early entrants.
From then on it was pure touristing to places I had been before and knew we would enjoy: there were views of Fingal’s Cave as we motored past (strangely empty this time except for a helicopter parked on top – perhaps it was closed for a private function?)…
…fish and chips in Tobermory…
…a walk to look at dams and castles in Loch Aline before a fine last-night supper in the strangely remote restaurant…
…before motoring to Oban across a glassy sea.
As we came alongside the pontoon, now without even the need to brief the crew on what to do, it occurred to me that we had covered a fair amount of the sailing syllabus in five days. Rather amazingly it had not rained once, nor blown an actual gale. Nor had I made David hoist the big pink spinnaker unaided, or learn the collision regulations off by heart.
Beyond that, I think we had done pretty much everything and been what felt like everywhere.
Blue Moon's trip around the UK 
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