Visiting Arran. Portavadie to Lamlash 28 July 2024

 

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 one of the visitors moorings because they don’t have pick-ups.  However, with such an athletic crew this seemed to be no problem.

Top, Holy Island that protects Lamlash Bay and
below, part of Lamlash.  It is a very holidayish place at the moment -
 lots of families enjoying the sun.

We went for a walk along the shore in what felt like intense heat (actually only about 20C) followed by coffee in the garden of the Glenisle Hotel.  The amount of Himalayan Balsam and Japanese Knotweed along the shore is quite surprising - these invasives are really well established and will be difficult if not impossible to get rid of.

We’re back on board at the moment having a quiet time before going back ashore for dinner.  We are booked into The Drift Inn for 19.15 - not a fancy place but we hope it will have good pub grub. We won’t be able to stay too long or drink too much because the forecast is for the wind to strengthen, and we all have to come back in the wee inflatable tender. Always a little precarious when there are waves.

Today’s boat bird list is 23 species.  Nothing special in the bird list, but remember we did see a Minke Whale so we are pretty happy.

Our route:

































































































































































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