Lazaway Life

  This morning, still securely attached to our mooring buoy in Lamlash Bay.  Thank goodness.  It had been a horrid night with very little sleep.  Thumps, bangs, groans and creaks, squeaks, slapping and gurgling water, and the boat rocking from side to side just about all night.  We all slept very little, and both Gordon and I were up, at separate times, twice during the night to check that we hadn’t broken loose and something dire was happening. Wind in one direction and short sharp waves coming into the bay from a different direction at right angles, meant we rocked all night.  We really like Lamlash but its bay gave us a thrashing. We slipped our mooring at 09.00 to head out into the north Irish Sea with a brisk breeze blowing. Our bowsprit flag was rigid from the outset and stayed that way all the way home.  It got really quite rough from the bottom end of Arran until well past Ailsa Craig, but nothing the boat can’t handle.  The second half of the journey was a little bit calmer, t

  Passing the village of Corrie on the Isle of Arran Mirror calm again today (to start with) so we left our berth at 09.00 to head south to overnight at Lamlash on the Isle of Arran.  The smooth sea conditions allowed us to see Harbour Porpoises on several occasions, and a Minke Whale several times on one occasion. Travelling close to Arran with sun out made it feel like summer (not something we are used to this year). Strangely our inverter has stopped working - which we discovered when we went to boil a kettle for breakfast tea.  It’s a new (2.5 years old) and market leading brand inverter (Victron), so we are very puzzled why it should stop.  We tried a couple of easy fixes but to no avail.  It’s not the end of the world - it stops us using the coffee machine or boiling the kettle on the move, but we can overcome this by starting up the generator.  We’ll sort the problem out when we get home. Arrived in Lamlash bay at 11.30 and had to perform some gymnastics in order to attach to on

  Looking up to the top end of Loch Fyne early this morning. Mirror calm, and not raining!! We had a very calm night on the mooring, leading to a good night’s sleep 💤.  Lovely.  Only interrupted by the normal visit to the heads (toilet) in the middle of the night, to be rewarded by a magnificent display of phosphorescence flushing through the system - a sign of a healthy sea. Well worth getting up for. Images of Inveraray  We left the mooring at 08.00 still in flat calm conditions.  Breakfast as we motored.  Saw Harbour Porpoises on three occasions. Not quite as many birds as yesterday, but much better scenery because we could see it today. We had a relaxing 3 hour trip to Portavadie where we got an easy berth. No sooner did we arrive but the sun came out. A real rarity this week, and it was warm.   Portavadie marina is located in a quarry-like basin that was originally created to facilitate the building of oil drilling platforms - this didn’t happen and so (eventually) the hole was u

  The Duke of Argyle’s pile at Inveraray Susie’s cocktail on her big bus pass birthday - nearly as big as Argyle’s pile! Today we have motored up to almost the very top of Loch Fyne.  It is a wonderful loch - very long, narrow, very deep in places, renowned for langoustines and oysters and all manner of seafood.  Very few boats and today very wet. These two pictures represent very well the views we had most of the way up the loch today. The upside was that the wind was behind us and it wasn’t cold.   Happy days. Early on, before we left Otter Ferry, we were treated (well, I was treated) to an astonishing 10,000+ foraging seabirds stretching up and down the loch - a real indication of how productive the loch must be. Gulls, Gannets, Eiders, waders, auks and more.  It only took just under 2 hours to get to Inveraray, a small but really quite busy wee town.  It is the home of the Duke of Argyle who still lives in Inveraray Castle (it has featured in Downtown Abbey).  The castle is open to

“Wee Docker” is a replica clinker built Loch Fyne skiff - as used for the herring fishery  during its height in the 1800s. This replica was built by volunteers under the supervision of Adam Way and launched in 2009.  It lies in Tarbert Harbour - in truth, it is a bit drab looking, but it represents a very interesting history. We found another wee gem this morning - a woodland walk along the northern shore of the harbour.  A narrow but good trail through natural woodland took us to the beach - a stoney beach - at Port Ban. A less contemplative beach than yesterday’s, but a lovely (short) walk. Lovely woodland walk - with Katie getting an update along the way. On Port Ban beach. At 15.00 we decided to refuel in Tarbert - £1.21 per litre (compared to about £1.60 in Bangor).  This took a while but by 16.30 we were en route for Otter Ferry.  Otter Ferry is a little bit farther up Loch Fyne and has a restaurant, the Oystercatcher, that has been recommended to us, and has visitors moorings.  

  Our Campbeltown Loch anchorage was excellent - really good holding with its thick gloopy sandy mud.  As the winch sucked the anchor out this morning the bow of the boat went down (and then bobbed up again!) - lovely.  We left at 08.00 to motor north in a grey chilly morning - the chill being abated a little by the wind being from behind (in a manner of speaking). The headless hills of Arran accompanied us most of the trip, but the sea was fairly calm, and it became just a little warmer as we came north (only a very little). We were directed to G pontoon again in Tarbert marina and got tied up before midday, which gave us all afternoon to explore the town - a town which we thought we knew - that was much too presumptuous. We found a very small community heritage centre on the south side of the harbour - free to go into and full of fascinating fun facts about Tarbert: the town’s fishing industry grew to prominence in the 1800s; it was based upon the Herring, known as “Silver Darlings”,

  The Gobbins were looking splendid as we passed. At 12.30 today we set off on a trip to explore bits of the waters on the inside of the Mull of Kintyre, some of which we have explored before and some we haven’t. We have no fixed agenda, so we’ll see where the notion takes us. Excitement from the start!  Our departure from Bangor was delayed by a Bangor lifeboat call-out.  Just before we were about to leave, the lifeboat raced out of the harbour, and in no time at all they called in asking for the fire brigade to come to the North Pier.  Within a few minutes the lifeboat was back with a motor boat in tow, and we could hear sirens as the fire engine came through the town. There was a lot of action around this rescued motorboat (a Bangor berth holder) but no smoke. A lively sea as as we motored north meant that we had a lively journey.  Lunch was delicious - the bits that we got in our mouths.  Afternoon coffee was delayed until we got into the lee of Sanda Island. En route we were accom