We returned to Ardrossan on a Monday morning after a fortnight’s ‘break’ – Nigel laying the foundations for a stable block at his country estate (!) while I was lucky enough to attend a wonderful Indian/Irish wedding in the south of Spain!
We had decided to travel back up to Scotland using the overnight Megabus; an extremely efficient way to travel although not particularly restful and we agreed that our first day back should be gentle so after a supermarket shop, a little maintenance, and an early pub meal we had an early night ready to get to sea the following day.
The weather the following day was pretty vile; heavy rain and gale force winds from the south but as we were heading north we decided to push on and get away towards the Crinan Canal and the cruising area to beyond.
Under just our headsail we made rapid progress past the Isle of Arran and then into Loch Fyne in torrential rain. We hoped to be ready to enter the Crinan Canal southern sea lock at Ardrishaig by 1600 but a quick check phone-call proved invaluable – the lock was not serviceable apparently due to excessive quantities of water in the canal! We made a rapid alteration of course to port and diverted into Tarbert!
Despite the weather we enjoyed our brief visit to Tarbert. We walked up the hill behind the town and down to West Loch and were intrigued to discover that in 1098 the Peninsular of Kintyre was ceded to the Norwegian King Magnus II (known as Magnus Barefoot). He managed to drag his galley across the same route that we walked and was able to claim Kintyre under the terms of a treaty that ceded to Norway all islands that could be sailed around! We also enjoyed the Royal Castle of Tarbert with it’s great views across the harbour and a Bangladeshi curry, which also came with a good view of the harbour!
We did receive some useful ‘intelligence’ in the pub from some Crinan Canal ‘veterans’ who suggested that we might struggle getting through the canal by ourselves and with just two of us onboard. We realised that we should, if possible, ‘buddy up’ with at least one more boat to ease the workload so we left Tarbert very early the following morning in order to increase our chances of finding some ‘canal buddies’!
We were extremely fortunate to arrive at the sea lock just after the yacht ‘Good Craic!’ Her crew of three were all very experienced local sailors who knew the canal very well and provided some extremely useful advice to us about the handling of bow and stern lines (lead all to the cockpit) and lived up to their yacht’s name by providing good company, Scotch pies and, later in the day, whiskey!
The transit of the canal was an all day evolution and fairly hard work, especially for the crew who have to tend the locks and ropes (thank you Nigel) and a certain amount of concentration is required to manoeuvre the yacht in and out of the locks in close quarters with other vessels. Canal staff were on hand to assist at both ends of the lock but after the first few locks we ended up in a ‘three yacht convoy’ with Good Craic, a lovely Rustler 35 from Gosport and ourselves so we were all able to provide mutual support and passed through the 14 locks without incident.
We were struck at just how narrow the lock is in some places with overhanging trees and bushes but, if we had more time available, we agreed it would certainly be a pleasant place to stop overnight, either in the canal itself or within the beautiful basin at Crinan. After the wild weather of the previous day we were blessed with a beautiful day for the transit and a wonderful sunset at Crinan, the only downside was our first encounter with midges but during his fortnight at home Nigel made up a ‘midge guard’ for the companionway and we used this to good effect whilst berthed overnight.
