Hebridean Adventure 2025 15 May 2025

 

Our anchorage among the Ardmore Islands on the SE corner of the Island of Islay

Come with us on holiday amongst the Inner and Outer Hebrides on the west coast of Scotland.  Three weeks (ish) of pockling about, guided by the weather, tides and our whims.  What could be better?!  And if day one is anything to go by, it’s going to be a belter?!

After 3 or 4 weeks of brilliant weather we can’t really believe that it’s still fabulous, and that it’s forecast to last for another week.  We left Bangor at 12.00 midday, and headed north.  A little bit breezy for the first couple of hours, but then it became calmer and calmer, until it was glassy calm at 18.00 as we arrived at the south corner of Islay.

Blackhead lighthouse at we passed at about 13.00

A string of Gannets pass with Islay on the left in the distance and the Paps of Jura on the right.

We’ve pulled into an anchorage amongst a group of very small islands on the south east corner of Islay.  Normally we go to the marina in Port Ellen but this time we decided to go off-grid and anchor.  It’s very shallow where we are so we had to be very careful about getting into the anchorage, and it took a couple of attempts to get a good hold, but all seems well now.  Quite idyllic.  Sunny, calm, 40-50 Harbour Seals loafing on the rocks, Common and Arctic terns foraging in the bay, Curlews calling, and a Great Northern Diver gracing the flat calm water.

 Beautiful.

It may be beautiful and idyllic, but it hasn’t been all plain sailing.  Following a software upgrade the automatic pilot has decided that it’s not going to work.  Gordon spent hours trying to overcome the problem, even reinstalling the old software, but to no avail.  As a result we had to steer manually all the way (and lost quite a lot of useful travel information along the way) - at least it kept us awake.

On the plus side we’ve just had a post-journey beer, and about to settle down to a chicken and ham pie with a glass of wine.  Does it get any better? Probably not.

Boat bird list is 28 species (let me know if you want to know the full list).

Our route:



10pm and all is well






























































Comments

  1. Wendy McPheeMay 22, 2025 at 4:23 AM

    Looks like you’re all having an awesome adventure!! The weather has been glorious for you and the photos and blogs really interesting to read!!
    The Fish Box menu is making me feel really hungry at 5.15am 😄!!
    When do you Guys get back to Bangor?
    Hope the sun 🌞 continues to shine and I look forward to reading more of your adventures and seeing the photos of your travels!! xx

    ReplyDelete

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