Friday, 18 August 2017

Oban to Port Ellen


 

Sunday July 30 2017.

0800 Hmm. I’m beginning to sleep in. I get up, I make the tea, I check the weather I put my hand out the companionway hatch It gets wet and is colder on one side. (I do not go and wake Sally up by touching her!)

We get underway so as to catch a favourable tide in the Luing sound. We do and swoosh through at between 8 and 10 knots. A sleigh ride with some bumps passing Corryveggan sound. The weather is not getting any better  so we decide to stop early at Lowlandmans bay on the island of Jura. We drop anchor in the anchorage at the West end of the Bay. We have done 37 miles.

We launch the dinghy and motor over to Christolyn  for a chilli dinner and Canasta. I won J))

Monday July 31 2017.

0930 we dinghy over and pick up Dawn then head into the beach for a walk. The SUN is out!  Sally and Dawn go for a walk over the sand banks to the next bay. I walk along the beach and then up onto the dunes. There are a herd of wild man eating sheep in the grass and bushes. I practice my stalking skills and manage to get pretty close when I see the girls coming back. The shheeps run away  Sally tells me to come see something. So I do.

It’s a mound of rocks. Some evidence of digging at both ends. Hmm. It’s either a small Viking tomb or Neolithic I then look around some more and find 2 others that don’t show evidence of tampering One even had trees growing out of it. Sally had seen another one overlooking the other beach. Also found what looked like the foundation of a building of some sort.

No time for further explorations so we get back to our boats get the anchors up and head off to our next anchorage .

1400 Hoisted up the Anchor and left the anchorage at 1430 with one reef in. We motored across to the N/W anchorage on the Island of Gigha. Anchored by 1630 off a very nice white sand beach. 11 miles today.

Tuesday August 1 2017.

0800 Up nice Sunny morning made tea and watched the S/V Leader (A Big 22 metre Ketch) sail out her anchor and sail backwards out of the anchorage and head off to her next port of call. We went ashore with Dawn in her dinghy had a walk about met a couple of friendly dogs picked up some trash went back to our respective boats and got underway for our next Port of call. Port Ellen

1200 engine on. Raised the anchor. (Sally wouldn’t let me try to sail ours outL) and were on our way by 1230.

We tried sailing and managed a ½ hours worth before we accepted defeat and turned the engine back on and Motored the rest of the way to Port Ellen where we tied up at 1630. Another Wet cold crossing. (Do you sense a theme here?)

Port Ellen is the main Harbour on the Island Of Islay. Islay if your not aware is the Scotch Capitol of the World.

Wednesday August 2 2017 ( HAPPY BIRTHDAY to my favourite sister Andrea)  to Monday August 7 2017.

.Weathered in.

We took a local bus up to the Aardbeg Distillery went into the shop didn’t get the warm and friendlies so walked to the Laphroig distillery where we did get the warm and friendlies and even some samples of their wares. I could develop a taste for this. We left and then walked to Lagulvin distillery for some more sampling. Dufinetly getting ug taste now. They were closing so we left and walked a further 3 kilometers back to town. It was raining.

We then rented a car. No not after the samplings but the next morning so we could do drive about instead of walk about. So we drove about and visited the rest of the distilleries on the Island and took a ferry to the island of Colonsay to visit a gin distillery and try to get to Oronsay but we missed the tide for Oronsay and could only admire it from a distance.

Heather and Allen arrived in their camper for a vist which we had. 
The interior of Islay was nothing like the coast. It was all rolling hills, peat bogs fields and woods along with farms towns and Distilleries. the island could secede from the union and the money made would support everyone. though the distilleries do not employ a lot of people as everything is automated. Only 1 or 2 of the distilleries actually only use local grains and bottles their product on the island and I think only two are actually still privately owned.
if we had not rented the car and only stayed in Port Ellen we would have had a very different experience and opinion of the place and not a good one.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

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