The Firth of Clyde, and home

The waters we entered after the Crinan are known as the Firth of Clyde, and offer some of the most scenic cruising in Scotland.  I decided to take a route up and around the Isle of Bute, through what is know as the Kyles of Bute.  It was a very peaceful place, with many quiet anchorages.  We spent our last night out at anchor, with a couple of other boats.

The Kyles of Bute

The next morning, we travelled down Bute, and put in at the town of Rothesay for lunch, and a walk around.  The marina was tiny, and we had to wait for a drawbridge to open before we could get in.  It was a nice town, and we had excellent fish and chips, and a good walk around.

Rothesay Castle

We then headed of to Ardrossan, where we are leaving the boat for the winter.  We had a very busy day and a half there, packing up, and preparing the boat for the winter ahead.  I decided to have the boat lifted out of the water and placed on a stand.  They use a big mobile crane for this.

Lifting out

We spent our final night on board in the boatyard, up in the air.

Then off to the train station.  Manchester is around 5 hours away by train, but we decided to break it up a bit, and stop an hour short, and spend the night in Preston.  We finished off the trip this morning, and are now about to board our flight back to Canada.   It has been a great summer, but it will be nice to get home again.
                           

The Crinan Canal

The Crinan Canal is like the mom & pop shop of canals.  They have staff to help out with the first 2 gates, but after that you're basically on your own.  Opening and closing the gates, and filling and draining the locks, are the responsibility of the crew of each boat transiting.  We headed off first thing, with plans of getting through most of the locks on our first day.

The narrow first section seemed more suitable for a canoe than a large sailboat (in fact, the canal staff needed to add a few inches of extra water for us, since our keel is so deep).

Then we arrived at the main locks section.  5 up, and then 4 down in pretty close succession.  Luckily for us, there was canal staff nearby, who took pity on us, and helped out with the various operations on most of them.

Opening the sluice gate

Closing the gate

By mid-afternoon we had made it through this section, and tied up to a small dock for the night.  The Kintyre peninsula, which we were passing through, has a tremendous amount of history.  The next morning, we all went for a hike up to some 5000 year old stone carvings.

We then headed down the remaining section of Canal.  2 more self-serve locks, and then the final 2 out to salt water.  The last lock is the largest of them, and the operator had us wait for an hour to let another couple of boats catch up to us, and had us all go down together.

Rush hour at the sea lock

Once back at sea, we travelled another hour and a half down to the town of Tarbert.  We had decent wind for a change, and were able to give the diesel a well earned rest.

Tarbert Marina, with ruins of 900 year old castle

To Scotland

Our first day out of Bangor was only about 25 miles, to Glenarm, one of the quaint coastal villages we had driven through on our road trip up the Antrim coast.  Adding to the local color was the Frenchman on the boat moored next to us performing an evening bagpipe recital. 

Glenarm put us in a good position to cross the North Channel over to Scotland, our plan for the following day.  The islands of SW Scotland are among the very best sailing in all the UK,   Our first stop was Port Ellen on the Isle of Islay,  which we reached after 8 hours of light wind motoring. 

Raising the Scottish courtesy flag

islay is famous for its 8 whisky distilleries.  The next day we took the bus a couple of miles down the road to the Ardbeg distillery, where we took a tour, and had lunch in their restaurant.  After lunch, we walked back to the boat, stopping by the Lagavulin and Laphroig distilleries to sample their wares.

The next Island North is the Isle of Jura, which of course deserved a visit.  We arrived in time to visit the Jura distillery, and then wandered over to the pub, where we met the crews of a few of the other boats moored near us.  Our Jura was a minor celebrity.

Emily, Jura, and some new friends

Our next planned stop was Crinan, which is the start of the Crinan Canal, which we planned on passing though the following day.  Because of the timing of the currents, we would either need to leave at first light the following day, or late in the afternoon.  The merciless captain opted for the former, and all adult crew were up before 6 to get us underway. 

After the crew scurried back to bed, I enjoyed a beautiful morning, being swept by the current northwards.

The early start gave us some time to enjoy the day, and I decided to visit a marina a few miles north, called Ardfern.  We ended up tied up just in front of the only other boat all month we have seen flying a Canadian flag.  The owners told us something we were already aware of, which is that our Canadian flag was much to small for our boat.  A while later they came by, bearing the gift of a much larger flag.

We spent a nice few hours in Ardfern, and then headed back south the 5 miles to Crinan.  We went through the first lock, and spent a peaceful night in the Crinan basin.

Crinan Basin

Northern Ireland Part 2

The Antrim Coast, starting about 40 km N of Belfast, and extending around to the north coast of Northern Ireland, was described as one of the top road trips in Ireland/the UK/the world, depending on which article you read.  Given the free time on our hands, we decided to rent a car for a day, and go exploring.

After a short stretch of quaint coastal villages, the road turned up into the hills, where we encountered a bit of a traffic jam.

It was impressive to watch a single border collie manage this large herd.  Doubly so when we realized the dog had only 3 legs!

It truly was a spectacular drive, and quite unique in many places.  The TV Series Game of Thrones is filmed around here, and many of the sites we visited have been featured in the show.

Finally, the mast was ready to go back up, and my focus shifted to getting everything reconnected properly.  Finally, after 15 nights in Bangor Marina, we were ready to escape.

During our stay there, I had been researching options for storing the boat over the winter.  The 2 best proposals were from the marina in Waterford Ireland (on the south coast), and the Clyde Marina, in Ardrossan Scotland, near Glasgow.  I had been leaning towards Waterford, since it would give us the opportunity to go to Dublin on the way, but once the boat was ready to go, the weather forecast was for wind from the south for several days out.  So, Scotland it is.

SaveSave

Northern Ireland part 1

One of the jobs I needed to do in Northern Ireland was make a trip to the Apple store in Belfast, due to a little incident with my computer, a not-as-waterproof-as-I-thought backpack, and a wet dinghy ride in the Isle of Man.  I got up first thing the next morning, and took the 30 minute train ride into the city.  Meanwhile, Sara and Emily took advantage of the Pickie Fun Park, an old style amusement park next to the Bangor Marina.  Emily had fun on the rides, and made some new friends.

We departed with the northbound tide the next day, headed for Glenarm, 20 miles further up the coast.  It was not to be, however.  There had been some issues with the main halyard (the rope that pulls the mainsail up) going back to the Atlantic crossing.  We thought we had fixed it, but when I went to raise the main, the halyard was clearly grabbing on something.  The ability to be able to drop the mainsail in a hurry is a pretty important safety issue, and it was immediately clear to me that we needed to get this fixed prior to doing any more sailing.  We did a U-turn, and were back in Bangor not 30 minutes after leaving.

I went up the mast once we were back in port, and could see there was a metal plate that had worn through, and had ragged edges that were catching up on the halyards.  I got on the phone, and made arrangements for a rigger to come by the next day to give his professional opinion.

His recommendation was to take the mast down, and replace all the sheaves (pulleys) at the top of the mast, as well as the offending plate.  The silver lining in this significant job was it would allow us to do a full mast and rig inspection, which I wanted to do sometime in the next year anyways.

With an additional week planned for this work, we made arrangements for Jura to fly from Glasgow over to Belfast.  In the meantime, we made plans to enjoy the various attractions of Northern Ireland. Belfast is of course infamous for the violence of "the troubles" in Northern Ireland, but the city is also famous for shipbuilding, and have invested a lot in tourist facilities based around the Titanic, which was built here.

The rigger, Niall, made arrangements to have the mast removed from the boat on the Thursday.  Sara and I did a number of jobs in preparation for this, such as removing all the sails, boom etc, and then Thursday morning, Sara and Emily headed to the airport to meet Jura, while Niall and I took the boat over to the crane in the boatyard to drop the mast.  by the time the girls were back in Bangor, the mast was laying on supports in the boatyard, where it was to remain for the next week.

I wanted to take full advantage of the mast being down, and re-routed or replaced much of the wiring that ran up inside the mast, ensuring (hopefully) many years of trouble free operation of the various electronic systems that live at the top of the mast.  I also installed a wifi booster antenna at the top of the mast, which makes a big difference in our ability to access the internet from the boat.

We did 2 city tours of Belfast while were were in Bangor.  The bus tour was ok, but by far the best was a taxi tour, that specifically focussed on the (ongoing) history of the Catholic Irish Republicans, and the Protestant Loyalists.  The ceasefire has been in effect since the late '90s, but there are still 2 separate societies co-existing, and a definite lack of a Northern Ireland identity.  Very educational and interesting.

The "peace wall" between previously warring neighbourhoods

To Northern Ireland

We departed Port St Mary the morning of August 5th.  Our "official" objective was Ardglass, due west from us in Northern Ireland.  My secret objective was Bangor, in Belfast Lough, about 35 miles further north than that.  We were to pick up Jura in Glasgow Scotland in just under a week, and saving the day travel from Ardglass to Belfast would make the remaining days travel more relaxed.  I timed our departure so that we would get maximum benefit from the north flowing current, that should help greatly in making our way to Bangor.

Isle of Man south coast

Chicken Rock Lighthouse

About 3 hours into the crossing, we were making good time, in pleasant conditions, and adjusted course for Belfast Lough.  The current worked as predicted, and we cruised along at over 9 knots at times.

Approaching Belfast Lough

After 8 hours on the water, we pulled into our slip at Bangor Marina.  A very successful day.

Isle of Man

We had been planning on crossing over to Dublin, but the wind forecast was from the west, so we changed plans, and decided to head north, to the Isle of Man.  In order to have the current in our favour for the 50 mile crossing, we were up at first light, and underway by 6:00 AM.

En Route to Isle of Man

We arrived in Port St Mary, on the southern end of the island, early in the afternoon, in the fog and rain.  We tied up to a mooring ball, and launched the dinghy, to go ashore.  It was a very wet day, but we did manage to walk around the town, and meet a few other sailors at the pub.

We had a rather rocky night on the mooring ball, and decided to move first thing the next morning, to tie up alongside the pier.  It was rather intimidating, since the wind was blowing strongly, and we needed to tie up to a stone wall, the top of which was 20 feet above our heads, and crowded with fishing boats.  We eventually got tied up, thanks to the help of a construction supervisor working on the pier.  Probably one of the most stressful times I have had in a boat.

I have been spoiled by marinas built of floating pontoons, where the dock rise and fall with the tides, saving us from needing to concern ourselves with the changes in water level.  Here, we needed to accomodate a 30 ft tidal range, every 6 hours.

We fortunately have some very long lines on board, so I was able to run lines well forward and aft of the boat, up to the bollards on the pier.  As the tide dropped, I would pay out a bit more rope, so we wouldn't be left hanging from the pier.  Once we were at the bottom of the cycle, I just monitored things, and we actually stayed nicely alongside, even when the lines went slack at high tide.  The experience was a great confidence booster - I'll definitely be more at east the next time we need to tie up to a fixed pier.

Poor weather kept us there for a couple more days, but it was an enjoyable place to be.  One day we took an old steam locomotive to the capital city of Douglass, and we met a number of locals and other sailors.  One of the highlights of the trip so far was the confidence Emily developed climbing and descending the ladder to the boat at low tide.

Arctic Tern and the fishing fleet

On Belay

Train ride to Douglass

Thomas the train lives on the Isle of Man

Finally Sailing!

Sailing in the UK is surprisingly complicated.  The tidal range is very large, and the currents strong.  Our departure from Caernarfon was very much governed by these.  The harbour itself is inside a big metal gate, that opens for about 4 hours each tidal cycle, when the water is high, and then closes, to keep enough water in the harbour to keep the boats afloat, when the tide drops.  Consequently, we could only leave when the gate was open, near high tide.  On the day we planned to leave, the gate was to drop at 7:00 am, and for a boat our size, we were advised to wait another 20 minutes, to allow the water to rise a little bit more.

Our goal for day 1 was Holyhead, about 20 miles north of Caernarfon, up the west coast of Anglesey, the island at the northern edge of Wales.  However, because of the timing of the currents in the Irish Sea, we couldn't go the most direct way, clockwise around Anglesey.  Instead, the only way to realistically (pleasantly at least) get there in 1 day is to go counterclockwise around Anglesey, which involved going out through the rather intricate Menai Straights, and then waiting for a couple of hours along the North coast, before rounding Carmel Head, at the NW tip, which gets very rough when the current is running strong.  After a lunch break at anchor, we rounded it at slack water, and finished off the trip into Holyhead harbour.

It was nice to get on the water, and satisfying to solve the navigation puzzle of getting to out planned destination in reasonable time, and smooth waters.

Along the Menai Straights

Sara driving through the "Swellies"

A modest Welsh estate