Lamlash to St Ninian's Bay via Dunagoil Bay

We had a very lazy start to the day... With very little wind and bright sunshine we raised the main on the mooring to shake out yesterday's reefs. With the stay-sail and no.1 jib there was just enough wind to sail off the mooring. Then we raised the reaching sail and furled the jib, to make 1-2 knots towards the south end of Holy Isle. We even got the old stay-sail out and rigged a water sail... The main point was to dry the sails, but it made a lovely contract to yesterday's foredeck work!

Holy Isle

We lost steerage way after an hour, and were still in Lamlash bay, so the engine went on, and at 3.5 knots instead of .5 we soon reached the red channel marker that marks the end of Holy Isle. Once there we found a little wind, but could only make 2 knots under sail, heading due east. The engine soon went back on, and we headed north, back towards Bute, completing a circumnavigation of Holy Isle instead of Arran!

The seas were totally flat so the autopilot went on and we dropped the main sail.
I washed the inside of the cabin down with sea water to get rid of the black mould that was creeping back, and Julian straightened the winch handles and did some fishing (with no catch) while the weather went from warm sun, to light rain, then back again. We had no wind until after lunch, but as soon as we'd eaten the main went up again and we sailed (still on autopilot).

After a lovely gentle sail we dropped anchor in Dunagoil Bay. The water was so clear that we could see the sand 3m below. It was not especially sheltered with the wind now from the NW, so we decided not to spend the night, but we wanted to visit Dunagoil Fort, so I rowed ashore while Julian swam!

Watched by curious heifers we moored Worm to some rocks and set her anchor in the sand. An easy scramble along the shore brought us to Dunagoil Fort. A lovely place! We discovered house remains on the summit, plus our first chunk of vitrified fort. We also found fresh puffball mushrooms, and picked enough to add to our dinner.

Vitrified fort remnant

The row back to Robinetta into the swell was not as pleasant as the row to the beach, but not too difficult, and the anchor came up beautifully clean. We raised sail as we cleared the bay and set off best course to windward.

We beat north for a couple of hours. The tack towards Arran was depressing, the land being dark and far away, while the sun was in my eyes so I could not easily check the sail set. The swell got up, and I wondered about reefing. Then we tacked, and had the sun behind us, and Bute to admire. We also sped up, from a slogging 3 knots to 4, and this was the making tack!

We approached St Ninian's Bay, our intended overnight anchorage, and were not sure we had made the right choice. There was one yacht already in there, and it did not look especially sheltered. Clyde Cruising Club directions said to anchor in 8-9m, which is deeper than we like. We got the sails down in the bay, and it was calmer than it looked, then as we were motoring towards our chosen anchoring spot another yacht came in under motor and passed us. They were obviously more aware of us than it seemed, and left the area we were aiming for clear.

St Ninian's Bay anchorage

Once the anchor was dropped and set we realised that the anchorage was great. Despite the cold wind above decks it was peaceful below with no rocking at all, and we had an undisturbed evening, watching gannets fish on the other side of the bay.