Beautiful departure from Port Ellen at 9am this morning, and I do feel impelled to quote from Rick this morning as he said “that looked very professional, you left the marina and got the sails up with strong winds in a confined space, well done” I felt it was worth mentioning this as we now feel we are getting somewhere with our sailing skills! Thanks Rick, a good way to start the day and it is compensation for the fact the day looked very murky and we can’t really see the beautiful Scottish Isles that we are sailing through.
Before I continue, I would just like to add to the detail from yesterdays blog. Having berthed in Port Ellen it was shortly before high water, Rick became concerned about the lack of depth under our keel – and this was at high water, so at low water, which would be around midnight we may have considerable problems. We looked at other boats in the marina and wondered why they didnt feel the same concern. Checked that our depth gauge was accurate by using a lead line to measure for ourselves – yes, it was correct! We knew that the tidal flows between islay and Kintyre are very strong as the flood feeds into the Irish sea and the Sound of Jura, and it was only upon further reading and discussions with the locals that we discovered a local peculiarity with a feature called an “Amphidrome” which means there is very little rise and fall of the tide. A local fisherman told us “the tide jus nae come in”! I think we need to do further research about Amphidromes!
Anyway! We usually know we are heading in the right direction as the wind is generally right on our nose – as we have “Head Wind Rick” on board. We are also finding another factor which makes things a bit more interesting, and that is the “Varty Effect” (yes, the “V” is correct and shouldn’t be replaced with a “F”!)
As occurred yesterday, during my watch the wind increased and increased, and we had to reef the sail, and Mike and I always knew our watch was coming to an end as the wind eased and we had to shake out the reefs…..John Varty was about to come on duty. Come on John, have a word with your best friend up above!
Speaking of watches, remember I mentioned Mike’s little hiccup yesterday…….well, I’m pleased to report today he is taking it very seriously and in fact nearly threw me off the helm when my hour was up!
In fact, the “Watches” system worked pretty well today as it happened. Each time Mike and I took over the watch, the rain ceased and the wind increased, and with the wind and tide in our favour we made a very comfortable 8 to 9 knots which felt really beautiful to sail. However, as soon as John and Chris emerged to take over the watch – the rain started and continued until their watch ended. Some of us found it funnier than others funnily enough!
So, you may be asking, it there were 2 watches with Jill&Mike/John&Chris – where was Pete. Well, Pete is trying to gain his coastal skipper qualification before he leaves the boat this weekend and we have been working as crew whilst he and Rick work on skippering and navigation. So Pete was meticulously working on navigation whilst we worked our way up the Sound of Jura.
Another lovely moment emerged when Pete pointed across our starboard and said, “thats where you want to get your whiskey from – Jura” he was, in fact, pointing to the mainland and Jura was in view across our port side (we were traveling north). We giggled and said that he was 180 degrees out but he continued to insist and said he had seen it on his map! He even brought the “map” to us in the cockpit to prove he was right whilst we contained ourselves. We gently pointed out that the “chart” he was using was called “Sound of Jura” and the title of the chart was printed on the right hand side, which just happened to be the mainland. Anyway, it made us smile!
As we made our way up the Sound of Jura, in the right direction I hasten to add, we came upon an interesting formation in the water – small whirlpools, eddies and confusion in the sea – this was a result of us traveling between the Gulf of Corryvreckan and Dorus Mor. It gave us just a small glimpse of how it might be in the Great race at Corryvreckan when there can be overfalls of 8 meters!
Our 10 hour planned passage was reduced to 8 hours as conditions were totally in our favor and we sailed from Port Ellen to Craobh in record time.
Craobh is an interesting place.
It was formed over 20 years ago by linking 3 islands ion with breakwaters to created a beautiful safe haven which can accommodate 250 boats. As we approached the marina, we did wonder how you pronounced the word Craobh, the almanac did help a little by telling us it was pronounced Creuve (does that help you?) it is pronounced like “Groove” but with a C in a Scottish accent, we just about get it right. Chris tried this when she used the VHF to book a berth and it seemed to work anyway!
There isnt really a village as such – there are several prettily painted houses, but the local shop has closed down, and the pub, Lord of the Isles is attached to the marina.
Of course we had to visit the Lord of the Isles as we make every effort to contribute to the local economy at any opportunity as you will know if you are following this blog!
This pub felt very out of place on the West Coast of Scotland, and felt more like a club at Haven or Butlins – full of people on holiday (and yachtees like us!) with a smattering of locals.
I have increased my sampling of local whiskeys – tried Caol lIa, made of course on Islay, and Jura (bet you can’t work out where that one comes from!) My favorite so far is the Bunnahabhain 18 – very nice!
Just as we thought about leaving, around 10pm, the quiz started and we found ourselves pulled into it. I can’t brag here about how well our team (“Round Britain in 84 Days”) did, and we finished with a paltry 29 out of 60, funnily enough identical to our neighboring team! I will however, in mitigation let you know that it was difficult to hear and understand the quiz master with the noise of “Butlins” around us combined with his heavy Scottish droll and the fact he slurred his words more and more as he took little nips of whiskey between questions! Not to mention the fact the questions had a very heavy bias towards all things Scottish – but the crew of RBE are not poor losers……. We didnt stay to receive the wooden spoon however!
A swift run back to the boat through the torrential rain – it was the wet rain! Snuggled down in my bunk once again blogging……Goodnight!
