Ardfern to Crinan Canal 06 June 2024

 

Lazaway in the first lock leaving the sea at Crinan.

The forecast for the north Irish Sea (Machrihanish and Mull of Kintyre) over the next few days is pretty dire - lots and lots of wind - and we felt as though we had been in Ardfern long enough, so we decided to take the Crinan Canal across the top of Kintyre so that we are on the inside of the Kintyre peninsula and sheltered from the wind. Susie and Gordon have travelled this route before (in the other direction) but it’s very new to Mary and me and rather exciting to take Lazaway along this thin ribbon of water.

Locks filled with enthusiasm once they started.

The canal is quite beautiful to travel along - relaxing and picturesque - unless you are driving a large boat or fending off other boats in the locks!

Relaxing and beautiful.

Entering a lock - less relaxing. Gordon’s new camera has captured this, 
and has been speeded up X6

For going through the locks we were paired up with a yacht whose skipper just didn’t care if the stern port corner of his boat took a chunk out of our fibreglass.  Inept comes to mind.  Mary spent the whole time in every lock fending off - she earned her keep for sure today.

Lock gates being closed behind us 

Berthed at ‘the summit’ of the canal, just before the first locks that take you downhill, at Cairnbaan. We are keeping them for tomorrow.

For those of you who have not had enough of the Crinan Canal, Gordon has sent me this link to the Crinan Canal song:

q=crinal+canal+song&mid=D1109CA9A1C288759766D1109CA9A1C288759766&view=detail&FORM=VIRE&PC=APPL

I’m not sure if the link will work on the blog - we’ll see.  Be advised, it’s an acquired taste.

One of the reasons for stopping at Cairnbaan was to visit the Neolithic cup and ring stone site, described as a rock art site. More than 3,000 panels of rock art have been found in Scotland, with one of the densest concentrations being in the Kilmartin Glen (where we are). At Cairnbaan there are at least 66 symbols carved between 5,500 and 4,500 years ago.


The top picture has a series of cup carvings and the bottom picture has a cup with an outer circle.  You need to ‘get your eye in’.

This shows patterns of concentric circles.

Nobody really has a clue what the art means or why these carvings were created.  Loads of suggestions have been made for the concentric circles collection, including: monuments to commemorate the dead; optimistically carved sun dials; each ring recording a leader’s sexual conquest (who comes up with these ideas?!); marks left by people searching for food; and images of ripples made by raindrops. Nobody knows.

The boat bird list is 29 species, with nothing unusual, but with an emphasis on passerines seen and heard along the canal.

Our route:






































































































































Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Plockton to Stornoway - a goal achieved! 25 May 2024

Image
Looking up Loch Carron from our mooring in Plockton on this very calm morning.  Perfect conditions for our jump from Inner to Outer Hebrides across the (notorious) Minch. 08.45 we slipped the mooring rope and left the safety of a beautiful anchorage.  We have 61 nautical miles to go across the Minch.   The myth says that the blue men of the Minch, also known as storm kelpies, are mythological creatures inhabiting the stretch of water between the northern Outer Hebrides and mainland Scotland, looking for sailors to drown and stricken boats to sink.   Hopefully, today, they will be thwarted. Here is a map of the Hebrides, Inner and Outer, just to help with orientation: By Kelisi, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=541156 The Minch, and the Little Minch, have fearsome reputations for bad weather and sea conditions.  We are crossing from the SE corner of Skye, where it says Longay on the mainland, to Stornoway near the top of Lewis. So, we’re motoring pretty much
Read more

Western Isles adventure day 1. 19 May 2024

Image
  Bringing supplies aboard in Bangor marina prior to setting off on our next maritime adventure.  We left Bangor at 08.30 heading into a brisk northerly wind - the forecast didn’t have any ‘brisk’ in it.  Cool but sunny and pleasant.  Whitehead and Blackhead lighthouse looked lovely in the sunshine, but as we got towards The Gobbins the sea state was getting worse - really rather lumpy, with a lot of spray coming right over the boat.  It was blowing a steady 17 knots, the very top end of the forecast, and with this against the tide it was quite rough. To add to the joy a fog came down, patchy but quite thick in places, and so we became reliant on radar and AIS. Our hearts were set on getting to Jura this evening, and so we stuck it out until we got past The Maidens, which in the great scheme of things isn’t very far.  However the pounding sea got the better of us and so we turned left and headed for Glenarm.  And I’m glad we did!  Who knew all the delights that Glenarm has to offer?!!
Read more