Tied up on Stornaway

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I’m afraid I’m dropping a few day’s worth of posts here all at once! Sorry – no connection for the last few nights and possibly non for the next several either!

SUNDAY

Here we are with the fist passage of the 5th leg now over. We’ve only come 28 Nm today, from the Marina in Dunstaffanage (Oban) up to Tobermory. It would have been a lovely sail – if we’d had some wind – we sailed for about 30 minutes (and very nicely and very fast and then the wind dropped completely)! All was uneventful coming up the Mull with a little rain and mist to accompany us. We just tied up to a Mooring Ball in Tobermory Harbor with the prospect of probably spending the night here! The pontoons are few and they are all taken – cheek of it! With the weather being not too good (understatement), we are all inside Tonic having had a very pleasant lunch and a couple of cups of coffee and we now have the prospect of getting the itanic out (the dingy), inflating it and putting the outboard on it and heading in to take a look around the town. Tobermory is renowned for bars and local music. We’ll see. It looks very colorful from here.
A little note – not surprisingly – 9 people on this boat is too many! There is no space and too many wet clothes. I have to keep remembering that this will be only 10 days – but it may seem longer! Still, we will have the same Training Skipper (Barry) all the way home now- back to Chatham on July 27th (apparently at 11.00am in the morning – some plan that is!). There is quite a mix of people on board. A couple from Switzerland (French speaking), co-incidentally an English guy who teaches in Switzerland. We also have a very tall Anglo-Caribbean who is in business development for a bank in Jersey and we have Simon’s wife Charlotte. Finally we have John, an avid passage sailor. So far I have refrained from making any real comments about the crew and the Training Skippers – but I think I will have to start. There’s too many things going on here not to share. Dante’s Inferno comes to mind!

I’ll let you know what I think of Tobermory and how things develop here on the boat. Stay tuned!

Pip pip,

N

Tobermory without a story

So – a very pleasant afternoon stay in Tobermory. Forget the issue getting the tender inflated and ready (the inflatable boat we use to get to shore when we’re on a Mooring Ball), we resolved all and then ferried the troops over for a few hours of shore leave. I grabbed a quick pint (alright then, two) with John, who is a retired Police Officer from Bromsgrove. He is gregarious and a funny guy who retired 7 years ago when he was 58. I can imagine he was a very good officer. We pleasantly swapped stories of family and friends and activities and the like. His life is a very organized life and he avoids work of any sorts, as it gets in the way of his pleasure. He sails, he has a motor home and he wants to cycle from Lands End to John O’ Groats without any company. As he said – without anyone else he can make whatever decisions he wants and no one will be offended or left out. Smart man! I don’t think he always knows how funny he is – helped by a dead pan Brummy accent. 
On board, a curry had been prepared and so we returned feeling good, ate curry, drank wine and then some went in to watch the footie (France – Portugal) The rest of us stayed on board and drank a little more wine, listened to the Stones and looked out over the harbor to the colorful quay of houses on Tobermory. The weather cleared a little and the light was awesome. The Harbor looked wonderful. My night was made by a phone call from James in San Francisco. I couldn’t send e mails, or post anything on-line, but I could get calls and so managed to speak to all of the family during the course of the afternoon.

I can’ say Tobermory thrilled me, but it was, as I said earlier, “quaint”. There has been an unfortunate effort to modernize it (which may well make the lives of the locals more manageable, but it has left a mixture of old and new and the balance of architectural styles is yet to be reached. As a tourist, you want the old to preserve, but as a local, you want the comforts of the new (as in new buildings and new infrastructure). Some of the old pubs and shops have been modernized, and not for the aesthetic better! The new tends to look out of place and the old ones look in place and they’re more of a draw. The Fish and Chip shop now has competition from a food truck (yes, food trucks have arrived in the Western Isles) sitting not 30 years away on the fish quay. It wasn’t clear if the ownership is the same and if it’s a case of expanding their capacity, but it just jarred with the quay and the old houses that back it. I would return to Tobermory, but probably because I would like to see the Island it sits on more than the place itself. I think I would choose to come back out of the high summer season (I say that with my tongue firmly in my cheek), this entire area will be fantastic. We couldn’t quite see it because of low clouds, mist, driving rain, drizzle and other associated weather, but the photos in the book were very encouraging! Actually sitting on deck last night, the sun broke through (the sun is around for a long time each day in this area – but it hides itself very well), and all seemed well with world other then the family being away in a completely different country. 

Living in a privileged world where travel between continents is always a possibility, doesn’t make up for being separated like we are across continents. But – and here is a confession – no matter how enjoyable this adventure is (and it is, even on the bad days) – I can’t get comfortable with the distance away from the family for such an extended period. I adopted the philosophy when I left Friday’s – to enjoy the journey and I have lived that over the last 9 months. The journey through Alice and Alec’s wedding was a delight, but focusing on this journey is a little exhausting. I’m not exactly counting the days down to July 27th, but when it arrives I will be very happy!

MONDAY

So now we’re sailing up to Sky and after a 6.00am start, we can see it off our Port Bow. we’ve past some very isolated Islands, including Eigg and Rhum, sailing up the Sound of Sleat. Our eventual resting place tonight was going to be Portree, but because of strong tidal streams, we’re heading instead to the Kyle of Lochalsh. We had some great sailing until the wind just went away! Nearly 9 knots screaming along and all the time dramatic scenery and weather all around us. It was cold – but it was so very enjoyable.

Lochalsh wasn’t quite what I had hoped for – a nice looking place from off the coast, but not so nice when we walked in. We docked up and went to a bar called the New Inn: It wasn’t. There had been a death in the village and we arrived as the funeral party were settling in to a good night on the “hooch”. They had clearly had a good day on it already. So we expressed our condolences, to the barmaid (possibly bar made – as she looked like she could have done it). She’s told us the village was going to be better without the deceased! Now that left us with a dilemma – was that her personal point of view or was this the consensus. Based on the songs being payed on the Juke Box – there was clear sadness, but we couldn’t figure out if the sorrow was related the absence of the deceased or the nearing of the end of the “sesh” and the return to normal duties. Well, in the hour we were there, it seemed no-one was really chatting about the poor dead guy – more about the days they had had celebrating other things, with or without him. So one of the party, let’s call him Hughie, he was very interesting. He had the look of a man who had seen good times and was hardened to whatever might be thrown at him, including a stray punch. Wind tanned and greying hair, early 60’s and still in reasonable condition, he held himself well. Blue dress jacket, white shirt and grey trousers, the jacket had the collar turned up to illustrate his roguishness. Several people came into the bar and each tried to turn his collar down. And guess what Hughie, or “wee Hughie” as I now want to call him – did? He turned it right back up. Hughie was in control of the juke box and his chosen play list was a collection of Country and Western classics, including a large measure of Willie Nelson. There is something a little a surreal about sitting in a worn-out boozer on the West Coast of Scotland watching a bunch of locals fall about trying to dance to Country and Weston. We left the pub to head back for dinner and to safety, because there were clear rumblings of trouble to come (as Wee Hughie was holding men by their lapels and looking deep into their eyes – and I didn’t detect it was a loving move0!

TUESDAY – and on to Stornaway

So we were up bright and early this morning – some had vague heads – after a good “drink” last night on the boat. I had to do my passage plan, so I missed the “short” drinking on deck and had to settle for the wine with dinner. I did end up with 3 guys hanging around the chart table asking lots of questions about today’s passage – and none of them can remember the answers this morning, based on the repetition of their questions (or it may be a measure of my bad answers)!
The Kyle of Lochalsh sits right on the end of Loch Alsh (funny that) and the bridge over to Sky is right there. So this morning we sailed underneath it and out into the Inner Sound and up past the Island of Raasay. The bridge stands at 29 meters and our mast stands at 18 meters. Of the 5 of us that we’re on the deck as we went underneath, there wasn’t a one who wasn’t wincing at the prospect of the mast hitting. Of course it didn’t, but regardless of the 11 meters of height available to us – it still looked to the world like we would hit.

We’re now heading up to Stornaway on the Isle of Lewis, up the Inner Sound and into the North Minch (sounds vaguely rude) then crab across and into Stornaway Harbor. There is unbelievable beauty all around us and after a good rain dousing earlier on – we have blue skies and wonderful white clouds. The early watch are now down here in the salon with me – eating eggy bread and brown sauce (not me – can’t stand the two in combination) and chatting about the prospect of seeing some sun today. I think shorts will stay packed away because the weather is still sending Monkeys to look for welders (Americans may have to work on Google for that one).
2 weeks tomorrow will she us heading back down into the Thames Estuary and into Chatham. Before then we have some big miles to cover and some more adventures to experience. While there are definitely too many people on this boat for comfort, it’s a good group and there is a lot of fun to be had. We’ve had folks step up and make some great food and we’re all chipping in to make sure there is wine to be drank with it (quality varies!). So now back to skippering (my duty today) and to see if we can send the Monkeys their way and we can remove a few well chosen layers!
More to come from Stornaway later.

Pip pip,

N      

And here’s what I found in Oban – miles from anywhere!

Port Ellen is on the Isle of Islay (pronounced I-la) and it’s got a lot of rocks all around it!. Also, there isn’t much tide and the entrance has only about 10 meters of water from the harbor wall that is deep enough to let a keel boat through. So – even with sizable ferries coming in and out – the keel boat getting in to the small Marina is a little tricky. In any event we made it safely in and docked up in the pouring rain on a slimy, guano covered pontoon (which we then spent a short while cleaning so we didn’t drag stuff into the boat, which some might say would be an upgrade To Tonic and overcome the smell that permeates the boat currently).
Port Ellen is the major port of Islay and it’s where most of the traffic, products and everything else arrive (strange really, because it is very small). Of most interest, it is close to a whole number of distilleries. Close in are Laphroaig (to me, like drinking neat TCP, but my family love it), Lagavulin sand Ardbeg. It’s a beautiful place.
The Islay hotel was the closest watering whole to the boat and the obvious destination for both the evening drinks and the connection to the Internet. It seems most of Scotland’s West Coast sufferers under O2 offering only GPRS and not 3G or 4G, which is actually available, because one of my co-conspirators get’s 3 G everywhere we go and he’s with a small provider I’ve never heard of. 
Surprise of surprises, The Islay Hotel, which looked a bit drab and pub-in-a-box from the outside, was in fact a facsimile of a London Gastro-pub inside and very nice – just a little out of place and lacking in any local color. But – it had decent enough beer, a fast and free wifi connection and strangely enough, both the bar and the restaurant had the prettiest girls working there. I mention this not in the creepy old man sort of way, but to provide a more in depth picture of the contrast in this place between biased expectations and the reality of what was found. It may have been MY biased expectation, but I thought we would be holed up in an old dingy bar with a comely lass serving behind the bar. Not one bit of it. These young girls were all quite beautiful, bags of personality and wonderfully softly spoken. Either great recruitment or something nefarious is going on!

Also Of interest – not one local inside – just wealthy visitors, and some of them were American. In fact – I kept my head down and my accent very “from Newcastle” when at the bar – because a rather loud, almost comic book America Lady, resident of the hotel, was explaining why she couldn’t charge anything to her room because she had a room mate and things would get complicated. Things did get complicated when she also said she had no cash on her or pay – so charge it to the room for now, but don’t put it on the bill, just hold it and she’ day tomorrow before checking out. A very patient, softly spoken Scottish Bar Manager tried to explain how she would be able to tell who had, had what the next morning when they came to pay their bill and it could all be settled then. Pity the room-mate! 

Oh dear – how do American’s get their reputation for always wanting their own way and for listening to no-one (well Mr Trump – what have you got to say about that?).

An early morning rise by me on my day I n Port Ellen and a walk to the public showers (very, very damp ones – honesty box in the corner, enough mould to reinvent penicillin, but clean towels laundered by someone locally and provided by the Center for abused Towel Rescue). Refreshed by my shower, I went for a lovely walk around the bay to the Co-op food Store. Now I have to say – everywhere we’ve been we’ve used Co-op Food Stores and they have been clean, well stocked, well staffed, polite and they have everything we needed. Someone is clearly doing a very nice job there. I like to try and buy something locally to support the local economy, other than beer and wine in the pub. So I bought an early breakfast from the Co-op and I sat with a bottle of sparkling water and a cereal bar and looked out over the bay, writing some e mails and contemplating the meaning of life (well the up and coming day and a well earned trip to one or two distilleries). In another “wee” shop a bit further on, I read an ad placed in the middle of the window. On a typed up template from a local undertaker, completed by hand – there was a notice to let people know that “My husband Ernie Clerk” would be cremated the following Saturday in Clydebank Crematorium. I have no idea how old or under what circumstances Ernie Clarke died, or whether he was actually dead – may be it was the prediction of a future event and may be the locals are very good at that, but it was the personal words “my husband” clealry written by his wife and not someone anonymous which made me sad and made me think of a lonely person losing their partner and close friend. So personal, so intimate, so final. Anyway – let’s not get too depressed when a distillery tour was in the off.
While our distillery plans didn’t go quite as we thought they would. Not sure why Carol of Carol’s cabs could have mistaken a pick up at the Islay Hotel at 9.15 for a pick up at the Ferry Terminal at 9.30 – but anyway she did and so our our tour plans changed – and it seems for the better.

We ended up on the 10.00 fully guided tour at Ardbeg and we had a blast (possibly not as good as the partially guided tour which might have room for much more excitement). For 20 pounds – we got a tour lasting over an hour with Ross (‘he’s just back from UNIVERSITY you know”) and he did a fine job of guiding us around the business end of the distillery and educating us as to what went on to get the brown nectar. He excelled at his next job – giving us 5 drams of various whiskies complete with insights into their deepest qualities. Anyway – 5 generous shots of whisky before midday seems to set the day up nicely (not encouraging you to try this – frequently). 

After the short return journey with Carol’s Cabs (who couldn’t remember dropping us FLF there 2 hours before – most bizarre) we lunched, rested and then set sail shortly after 1.30 for Oban. What a delightful sail up through the cut between Islay and Jura – where we ended up with no wind, but traveling at 8.00kts towards our destination – a tide like that can get you around the world. What a beautiful part of the country and a place I absolutely want to revisit. At one point – we passed by a small car ferry plying from one bank to another – in what I thought was quite a romantic setting. The stoic life of using daily ferries across wild waters and living in live weather like this part of the word has. One of the most wonderful aspects of thei apart of the journey was that the light was just wonderful – broody and a but misty, but light enough – as it was through until after 10.00 pm. Of course all good things come to an end and shortly after 7.00 the rain started and then it stayed with us until we got to Oban around midnight. In fact, as we entered the narrow Sound of Kerrera, the heavens opened and we were almost drowned. I was on the helm, Liz (crew) was on watch with me and the other two were down on the Salon supposedly watching the Chart Plotter.

Arriving in Oban we took a little time to spot a suitable Mooring Ball and once we did – landed on it first time, incentivized by the thought of warmth and dryness and may be a whisky, and then we secured the hatches, had the usual night night Whisky and I climbed in to my sleeping bag to get some sleep. 

Before going to sleep, I called Bernadette to see what how things were and got the terrible news of the goings on in Dallas. What can I say. Just shocking. The shooting events earlier in the day elsewhere in the US – absolutely terrible. I have no idea whether there were mitigating circumstances or not, but it does seem to me that Black lives have a lower value placed on them and you can’t win if you’re a Policeman. Not all Policeman are racist and not all Black People want revenge. Where will we find another Martin Luther King or a Nelson Mandela- two of the most sensible, articulate and genuinely accepting and tolerant people of the twentieth century? Who is on the horizon to match them? We really need to find peacemakers who focus on what we have in common and not people who focus on differences. I really can’t understand how the color of anyone’s skin, their sexual persuasion, their gender, their religion or anything else can define someone as a good, bad or a plain indifferent person. There are bad people all around, and what differentiates them from the rest of us is simply this – they are bad people and they happen to be what ever they are. Sorry for the serious ending, but I am quite sanguine about our collective future – between Brexit, the change of UK Prime Minister (Michael Gove – really?) and any prospect of Donald Tramp. Aren’t you depressed!

I’m writing this from Oban and the journey will continue tomorrow – not sure who will be with us – but we hear there will be 6 other folks joking us and a new Training Skipper. This boat is probably comfortable with 5 or 6 people. But – having 9, of which 1, the training skipper, will have to sleep in the Salon – not terribly comfortable. Now if it rains – and it will – we’re in Scotland – putting your wet gear somewhere to dry when you come off watch – there is nowhere now, where will 8 people put their’s? Ridiculous! And – my cabin will now be shared – and so we’ll see how that goes. It’s 10 days and we’ll make it through. Skippering this diverse crew will be interesting!

More to come – no doubt!

Pip pip,

N     

And so here is where we are right now. You can see Northern Ireland, Islay and Campbeltown 

We seem to end every day with a whisky sitting around the table ahead of bed! And now – in Port Ellen – Islay we get to tour and taste at Ardbed . As they say in Elite Sailing – Happy days!

My Father came home from basic training in 1942 to tell my mother where he had been posted to. This is the place – out last the Mull of Kintyre. She cried and cried thinking it was near Japan! Here I was in Campbeltown, just a stone’s throw away! 

​​After leaving Peel we sailed back over the Irish Sea and tied up Bangor, Northern Island. What a surprise – the weather was simply atrocious for most of the journey and at one time Simon (who was skippering) had to find the buoys we were looking for by interrogating the chart plotter – but hey – there they were, exactly where he said they would be and we emerged from the gloom to see a lovely looking harbour town on the coast of Northern Ireland. After a good run up the coast we entered Belfast Loch and located Bangor Marina. Interestingly – it was a splendid Marina, very well run and surely paid for by European Money (or would that be something in the Republic – probably). We tied up in driving rain – went to Asda in driving rain – went out to dinner in driving rain and came home to bed in driving rain (the bed wasn’t in driving red – just the normal dampness of Tonic – much the same really!). Just the friendliest of people run the Marina in Bangor – and in the pub we went to, but I can’t help thinking that the Peace Process hadn’t reached that particular bar where I would have surely received a free pint if I’d Identified myself as British, but I’d have beentaken out the back for a good seeing to if I’d suggested the Pope was pretty upset about the Brexit vote (may be a little paranoia here). 

After what seemed like an endless debate – we reaffirmed our destination as Campbeltown on the Mull of Kintyre and headed out. I was a little anti – because the weather as forecasted would have meant a dreadful sail and a late arrival and a wet time. However – as it happened, the sail was lovely and quite challenging and we arrived in glorious sunshine and at a time that meant we could walk the town and have a “bevy” or two. Before leaaving Banmgor – there was a team effort to make a Mushroom Pie to Alex, our Training Skipper’s secret recipes (which we now all have) and this became a team sport and involved a lot of interesting ingredients, not least of which were the 2 mugs (not cups) of Kraft Cooking oil that went into the pastry. It did come out of the oven about 3 hours later and it was delicious – but you could feed a family of 4 for a week on it.

Before we finished sailing for the day, we were entertained by Alex again – who stopped us putting sail away when the wind freshened to Force 7 (stupid term really – freshened – suggests a briskness, but instead it’s more a fanaticism) – he stood on the seat behind the wheel, wearing shorts and sailing boots (really not a good look and it was really cold) when he then pointed the boat as close to wind as was humanly possible and dipped not just the toe rail, but much of the stanchions (metal posts holding the guard rail) and the a good bit of the side walk into the water as we heeled over at an angle that meant we could stand up on the the inside/vertical piece of the cockpit seats – and he was shouting “bring it to Daddy”. Not sure what he wanted to be brought or what he’d fathered, but it was exhilarating sailing and a great way to demonstrate the robustness of our boat (which then yielded many buckets of water for his trouble). Now – would I do this myself – apparently yes because I went on to take the helm and couldn’t help myself – get this thing over! Awesome – but I don’t think I’ll be doing it on my own anytime soon when cruising in the BVI or San Fran – probably not without crew members leaving left, right and center. Actually I did do something similar in San Fran once – Bernadette ended up sitting with her feet pushing against the Cockpit Table to stop herself from being catapulted over and off the opposite side of the boat – she thought that Rod and I were just being tinkers, not realizing that we were terrified, but had no choice because a bloody big cargo ship was barreling towards us – and there was no alternative. Needs must and all that.
Around dawn the next morning, the weather changed, the rain started and the Met Office issued a Gale warning for sea area Malin (where we were). As the skipper for the day – I decided to run out of Campbeltown before the storm and see if we could beat it into Port Erin in Islay. And here we are sitting in Port Ellen after a good passage (Motor Sail – the wind was either on our nose or on our tail) Listening to the rain knock (not tap) against the roof of the boat – but knowing that we made it without incident (unless you call hosing and scrubbing the pontoon we’re on to get rid of of the slimy bird shit and moss that made it like an Ice Rink sprayed with decaying fish guts. However, before I leave you there is yet another Radio Story to tell you – yes another.

So on Tuesday morning I called the Marina in Campbel Town to request a birth for the evening – calling from the boat before I lost signal off the Irish Coast. After several attempts a very nice man answered and told me “Neh botha – just cum en in and will sort yus oot”. (Not a problem old man – just get in here and I will find you a wonderful birth on my Marina here). 

“Just Gie us a shout when yuzis passen the XXXXXXX (sorry no idea what that was we needed to pass before we should Gie I’m a shout)”. But – it sounded simple enough, friendly and welcoming and so it was. However, we tried to raise him using the stated radio channel (12 if you’re still interested) as we entered the harbor passing an island with a lighthouse on it called XXXXXXX), but we failed to raise him. I know what you’re thinking – not line of sight. MIt was – I promise! So – I resorted to the phone. Bingo – he answered and then I found myself almost repeating the Peel incident, but his time he came clean and said “I dinnay have a raddyo he’s to be the Phun”. Interesting – so don’t suggest in the Almanac – that people call you up on the God Dam Raddyo! So today we didn’t bother calling Port Ellen Marina on a Raddyo – we just went straight to the phone. First time we got the Coast Guard in Belfast – they weren’t much help figuring out a birth in Port Ellen in Scotland – no service ethic. Next time we got some guy who was actually in Port Ellen who asked what I meant by the Marina. A bit obvious, but OK – where they tie boats up to – “don’t think there is one here”. But he did think the building he was in used to many be it. Seriously? We made it here, got a birth and if the rain stops I’ll go and enquirer if there’s a building around that used to be associated with the Marina and now houses the village idiot.

Promise this is the last radio/Marina story – for now!

Pip pip,

N

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