Lazaway Life

  At anchor inside Muck A good forecast provided us with an opportunity to take Patrick (over from London), and Judy and Ashley (up from Crossgar) on a day out to visit the Gobbins and the Isle of Muck (Co Antrim).  A late morning start meant that we hadn’t been at sea too long before we heard the ducks (Gordon’s phone alarm at 12.30 - a twice a day event!) which got us into wildlife watching mode. We looked for Minke Whales all day but saw none. We looked for Puffins at the Gobbins but saw none. Whale(less) Watching Puffin(less) watching  We did see several Harbour Porpoises, plenty of Kittiwakes and loads of Manx Shearwaters.  The large gulls on Muck seem to have done okay this season - there were quite a few fledged young.   The main seabird breeding cliffs at the Gobbins.  The end of the Gobbins Cliff Path can be seen at the bottom of the cliffs at far left. However, we also saw several dead guillemots, we assume victims of avian influenza, although not...

This is a 2 minute mashup of our trip to the Inner Hebrides this month (July 2022).  It’s much shorter than we would like, but the file size that this blog website allows is only 100MB.  Hope you can cope!

  Really calm as we pass Machrihanish and approach the south end of the Mull of Kintyre Woke up to quite cool morning, heavily overcast and with a slight easterly breeze - pretty much as forecast.  We left at 09.30 for our 7+ hour trip to Bangor, joining an exodus of boats from Gigha and Port Ellen all heading south.  We’ve picked today because the forecast for Machrihanish is to be calm - and indeed it was, not even the usual big Atlantic swell. As we got further down the North Channel the weather improved by becoming a little bit sunny and much warmer.  Lunch somewhere off Glenarm, and ordered some more teak sealer (Semco) for delivery asap.  Black Head lighthouse at 15.40.  We’re nearly home! Arrived Bangor at about 16.30 to our home berth after a great two weeks away. The boat had performed perfectly today. A brilliant trip that has involved lots of problem solving, lots of chilling, a few beers, wines and whiskeys, a little eating out, and a mountain o...

  Cruising down the Sound of Jura having just inaugurated our new mugs from the Ardfern chandlery. Filled with fuel at Ardfern before leaving (the first time since Dun Laoghaire).  Fuel is currently £0.43 per litre cheaper in Ardfern than at Bangor and £0.18 cheaper than at Craobh, so well worth us filling up. It has also provided us with another chance to check our fuel consumption - it works out at 21.47ltrs per hour, the same our previous calculation.  Happy days. Arrived in Gigha at about 14.00 and picked up one of their bigger moorings.  Plenty of moorings when we arrived but full by the evening. Gigha mooring with our mooring bridle showing Gordon’s splicing and Shane’s splicing - but whose is whose, or which is which?     Dunno. Went ashore and had a locally made ice cream - Wee Isle ice cream - while we sat outside the shop.  The ice cream maker appeared in his van and asked us to mark his different flavours out of 10.  We did, no 10s. ...

  Lazaway leaving Lochaline yesterday - courtesy of John M and short video below Today has been spent at Ardfern - a sunny, dull, cool, warm, windy, not so windy, and dry day. Mary and Susie went for a bike ride and coffee - on the Raffan electric bikes, a first for Mary - in the morning.  Meanwhile Gordon and Shane had several maintenance treats to deal with on board.  The first was to flush out the holding tank (the sewage system) several times to try to get the internal monitoring system working properly.  It took about an hour and a half, but in the end the flushing and some wire twiddling worked, so all good now (the local fish all look contented). The second job was to check the impeller on the generator following the jellyfish induced automatic stopping a couple of days ago. This took about an hour, but resulted in finding the impeller was in good shape and did not need replacing.  We only had to replace the O-ring.  The generator was tested and is p...

  Lochaline Quartz Sand mine located just 100 yards from the marina 60 million years ago a volcanic eruption covered this super pure silica sand with a thick layer of basalt and preserved it, until now.  During WW2 when other sources of silica sand became unavailable this deposit became economic to mine (for the production of high quality glass (for periscope lenses and gun sights at the time)) and it has been extracted ever since. It is incredibly fine and white, and great care has to be taken because it can cause silicosis. The sand is extremely fine Lochaline is a hotbed of geology!  Not only does it have the white silica sand, it is also well known for the fossil oysters found on the shore immediately at the marina.  These oysters are Gryphaea, or colloquially known as Devil’s Toenails, and were laid down 200 million years ago in a shallow muddy tropical sea (they are the same age as the rocks of the Jurassic coast in Dorset). Gryphaea on the shore at Lochaline m...

  Early morning at our mooring in Loch Scresort on Rum It was a beautiful morning on Rum.  An early start on the flybridge looking for otters and White-tailed Sea Eagle produced neither (a little disappointingly) but the eerie haunting cries of Red-throated Divers displaying was magic! With the inverter not doing the job it’s meant to, we started the generator in order to make tea and toast for breakfast.  After a couple of minutes the generator shut itself down - after a bit of investigation we found that a jellyfish had clogged the cooling water intake.  Even after cleaning the filter there was no water - even with the seacock open.  We decided to see if motoring would clear the outer mesh of jellyfish bits, and we will have to check the impeller before starting the generator again.  A job for this evening. Our route today has taken us round the north of Rum, past Muck, into the Sound of Mull and south to Lochaline (where we were able to pre-book one of t...

Island of Rum with wonderful cloud formation  The day started with frantic activity in Tobermory.  The cruise ship Ambience (1400 passengers) was anchored just off the town and tenders, each of which could carry 141 passengers, were coming in on a regular basis.  The Staffatours boats were picking up passengers and the marina was bunged.  The Harbourmaster was going nuts.   Cruise ship Ambience and one of its tenders We left at 10.45 and headed for Muck - one of the Small Isles, with just 27 inhabitants. We tied up to one of the Mowi (a fish farming company) very large commercial moorings in the hope that rightful owners didn’t turn up while we were there. That gave us a the opportunity to go ashore and find the café recommended by Tom from Redbay Boats.  Good coffee (filter) and superb crab baps. Chocness Cafe on Muck and the superb crab bap we had for lunch. Highly recommended! From Muck we headed to Rum with wonderful cloud formation all the way. We were...

  A Tobermory day.  Walk to the Rubha nan Gall lighthouse in the morning, shopping in the afternoon, followed by coffee on board and a BBQ planned for the evening when John, Jacquie and Ruth arrive.   We had planned to set off for the Small Isles today, but the forecast showed more wind there than we wanted.  Tomorrow should be okay 🤞. The walk to Rubha nan Gall lighthouse is lovely, through woodland, with plenty of flowers.   Rubha nan Gall (‘Stranger’s Point’ in Gaelic) lighthouse was built in 1857 by David and Thomas Stevenson.  The light became fully automatic in 1960, and in May 2012 the original Fresnel lens and lantern were replaced with a more energy efficient LED lamp. Clockwise from top left: Harebell, Rosebay Willowherb, Eyebright, and Tutsan We made it a circular walk by ascending the hill on the return just before Brown’s Memorial. Steep and muddy but well worth it for the views down the Sound of Mull. The view south down the Sound of Mull wit...