Travels of Sailing Yacht Kitty B

After bringing Kitty B north to her new base on the Firth of Clyde in October 2021, we were excited to have the opportunity to explore the wider cruising grounds on the west coast, the other side of the Kintyre peninsula, which are inaccessible to us for a normal weekend cruise out of our Largs base. The cruising area on the west coast outside the Clyde was a major reason for bringing the boat to Scotland.

We pencilled in annual leave for the two week period starting with the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee weekend, giving us a head start with two bank holiday days, enabling our cruise to be 18 days for 10 days annual leave – though we were sorry to miss the Jubilee celebrations in our home community. We bought a set of signal flags to enable us to dress overall for the Jubilee, which we felt enabled us to join in.

Having been working on our laptops aboard, we were able to cast off soon after 16:00 on the Wednesday, and start our cruise; the first distraction was the presence of the stunning three mastered schooner Adix, at anchor off Largs Yacht Haven, awaiting the imminent Fife Regatta about to be held over the following week in this area, when many yachts designed and built by William Fife (three generations, all named William), at their yard at nearby Fairlie, were to gather.

After passing Adix, we pressed on under engine in the flat calm conditions around Arran and along the Kilbrannan Sound to the West of Arran, arriving to anchor for the night at Carradale Bay at dusk; one other yacht shared the bay with us. One advantage of cruising at this time of year in Scotland is the nights are short!

We had a civilised time to start the next morning, with with tide against us around the Mull of Kintyre until lunchtime; we nevertheless arrived at Sanda Island a little early for the favourable tide, and rested at anchor there for an hour. Another time, it might be interesting to explore ashore, but on this trip, we needed to press on.

We were soon on passage again; now the wind had filled in from the South so we enjoyed a good sail around the Mull, and north towards Gigha, though we ended up motoring again as the wind calmed once more; we picked up a visitor’s mooring at Ardminish, Gigha, a little before 18;00, so only 26 hours after leaving our Largs berth. This was Thursday 2nd June, the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee of the date she was crowned in 1952, so we dressed overall for the occasion. We took the precaution of tying a messenger string to the halyards used to hoist the signal flags, in case any of the flags might come detached, leaving our halyard at the masthead! We were a little disappointed that we were the only vessel in the anchorage displaying the courtesy of dressing overall in celebration of our sovereign’s 70th anniversary; but pleased to have done so.

Exploring ashore, we discovered the lovely Boathouse restaurant on the quay, but unfortunately it was already fully booked for this evening. We would have been tempted to book for the following evening, and have a day ashore exploring Gigha, but the forecast was for the wind to come to the East by morning; which turned out to be accurate, and as expected, this made the bay somewhat exposed and choppy. Most visitors departed relatively early! Our exploration of Gigha would have to wait for another visit.

We were a little undecided as to where to go next; with east in the wind, we considered various tempting options on the west facing coast to our north, but after setting off in this direction, decided instead to head for Lowlandman’s Bay on Jura, which offered sufficient shelter from the East behind a peninsula. Arriving there after a great sail, we found we had this stunning bay under the Paps of Jura to ourselves. A walk ashore from the stone quay in the north east corner of the bay took us past the former lighthouse keeper’s shore station house, currently being redeveloped as a modern house.

Next morning, we called into Craighouse, the ‘capital’ of Jura, and enjoyed another walk ashore, around the bay, and to the old pier where local businesses including a photographic gallery, a rum distillers, and a craft and cards type gift shop have been established in modern units – each was duly visited, and some items bought.

Afterwards, we pressed onwards to the Sound of Islay, but paused for an hour in a small bay at the SE corner of Jura, to await the north going tide.

As the tide turned to run Northwards, we weighed anchor and went with it, being passed by the CalMac ferry MV Finlaggan, and passing the three distilleries on Islay overlooking the Sound, of Caol Ila, Ardnahoe and Bunnahabhain; we kept to the Jura coast, to enter West Loch Tarbert, a special location that has no human habitation whatsoever, and a very narrow and challenging passage through a twisting rocky channel to a central loch; the brilliant Antares charts were really helpful in navigating through this passage. We may have omitted to take any photos during this passage; some focus was needed on pilotage! Some transit marks were in place, we understand first positioned by the legendary Blondie Hastler.

We decided that one of the anchorages on the north shore of the outer Loch looked more attractive, and anchored in a bay with one other vessel; a walk ashore and up the hill was needed to obtain a mobile phone signal, where we learned that the Jubilee celebrations at our home village were suffering something of a downpour, all day long… whilst we continued to enjoy a spell of hot and sunny weather.

The next day we sailed onwards to Iona, anchoring off the moorings there, and enjoyed another cracking sail for this passage.

On this occasion we had used a tripping line and buoy for the anchor, in case the seabed was fouled; I was pleased we did so, as our anchor had indeed got caught up in a cable, which would have made recovery of the anchor tricky, but with the tripping line in place, it was a simple matter to free the anchor from its obstruction.

We sailed onwards to anchor in Cragaig Bay, on the south coast of the island of Ulva; this is a bay surrounded by rocks which looked very interesting, and miles from any road, and was quite breathtaking. We had the bay to ourselves, other than a croft house in the bay where someone was staying.

We wanted to press on to the North if we could, taking advantage of the settled period of weather, and decided to head to the ‘Small Isles’, to the North of Ardnamurchan Point; but first, we explored into an alternative anchorage in a pool at Gometra, the island to the West of Ulva; this looks like a good spot to stop also, in suitable conditions, though perhaps not quite as breathtaking as Cragaig Bay had been.

Onwards around Ardnamurchan, we looked in at the small harbour of Muck initially, but decided to press onwards to Eigg, a little further North. Here, initially we anchored in the south facing bay but after going ashore and seeing the alternative on the other side of the small peninsula, we re-anchored in the other bay. Eigg’s community shop and cafe had recently opened (construction works still being completed to the outside areas), and we found this shop to stock a wide variety of quality products – like a small Waitrose! One thing we did need was milk; they had milk, but you need to bring your own container – ours had just beforehand been placed into the recycling skip nearby!

We would have liked more time at Eigg but there was a change in weather forecast in a couple of days, and we still wanted to get to Skye, and back to the Sound of Mull, before the weather broke. We therefore pressed onwards the following morning, to visit Loch Scavaig under the Cuillin mountains of Skye, still in hot and flat calm conditions; there were a couple of tourist boats waiting there, but after 5:00pm they departed for the day, enabling us to use the steps that the tourist boats need, to go ashore for a walk up into the impressive bowl set in the middle of the Cuillins, with the freshwater Loch Coruisk just above sea level.

The weather started to turn the next day, with the forecast being for windy and rainy weather for a few days, though just a bit grey initially; with this in mind, we started our return journey and decided to head for Tobermory, on Mull; we enjoyed a good sail to the top of the Sound of Mull, and were soon in Tobermory harbour – where we found just one mooring remaining available, towards the far end of the harbour. Our first remotely ‘busy’ location on this cruise! We enjoyed a walk ashore and an explore around Tobermory, which we had only visited once before, with a chartered yacht.

We left after one day to move onwards down the Sound of Mull, to explore into Loch Aline, where we picked up a visitors mooring near the village – and near the quartz sand works, which industrially continued their work. We nevertheless enjoyed a walk into the village, and along the length of the loch on a good path through woodland on the loch side, to see Kinlochaline Castle near the north end of the loch

As we returned to the boat, the windy and wet weather caught up with us; there was something of a slight lull in the morning, before the next onslaught was due and was expected to last at least two days, so we decided to move onwards to Kerrera; the lovely new owners there assured us, whilst we were on passage towards them, that there should be space for us. On arriving, we took an empty berth, and shortly Tim, the owner, arrived to propose a move to a different berth as the one we randomly chose was going to be required; Tim and his colleague helped with lines etc for both manoeuvres. Here we settled in for what turned out to be three nights, enjoying meals in their on site restaurant, walks on the island of Kerrera, and rides in their provided water taxi across to Oban.

Finally the weather relented a little, and whilst heavy showers were still frequent, we moved a short distance onwards to Puilladobhrain anchorage, on the north coast of the island of Seil – an anchorage I had visited twice before on different vessels, but which always delights, including the walk along to the famous ‘bridge over the Atlantic’ at Clachan Bridge – and a pint of bitter at the adjacent pub.

The following day, we sailed through the Cuan Sound, with the aid of the brilliant Antares charts to help us miss the obstructions, before pausing at a bay at Shuna Island, onwards to Craob Haven for a fuel replenishment, and then through the Doris Mor tide race (against the tide – with interesting whirlpools entertaining us), before picking up a mooring at Ardfern Yacht Centre for a walk ashore.

This left us one night in hand before our planned entry to the Crinan Canal, to make our way back towards Largs without re-rounding the Mull of Kintyre (which adds about 70nm to the distance required). We had a slow day, with a walk over the hill to Craob Marina, and headed back towards Crinan along Loch Craignish to anchor in a beautiful spot between some small islands. Whilst setting the anchor, as soon as we put the engine into astern to pull the anchor into the seabed, a big vibration went through the boat – it was reasonably evident that the engine should be taken out of gear immediately, and, on checking below water with the go-pro camera which confirmed my suspicions, we found that our three blade feathering Brunton Autoprop had shed a blade, putting the prop badly out of balance.

The following morning was spent organising a replacement propeller to be delivered to Ardfern, and when the wind veered a little so that we were not at risk of grounding on the nearby rocks when lifting the anchor and sailing off, we sailed on back to Ardfern; we requested assistance from Ardfern to be towed alongside their marina but instead, were directed to an outside visitors buoy. Our replacement propeller was posted the next day, with Parcelforce’s ‘next day’ guaranteed delivery booked and paid for, claimed to be available for this postcode; inevitably though, it failed to arrive on Friday, Saturday, Sunday or even Monday… on Tuesday, the Royal Mail postie delivered it, and Ardfern lifted Kitty B out, and swapped the propellers over.

By 3:15pm, our bills paid, we were finally on our way, entering the Crinan canal sea lock about an hour later, and mooring on the canal ready to progress through the canal the next day.

We managed to leave the canal at 5:00pm, after a passage of 8 hours including delays to wait for locks and bridges; it was a working day for us, so we pressed on straight back to Largs, reaching our berth at about 10:00pm, three days after we should have been back for work.

Our cruise ended up being 22 days – with a week at Loch Craignish / Ardfern; we covered 319 nautical miles over this period, during which time we did do some work whilst awaiting delivery of the new propeller to enable us to move onwards.