No rush

We stayed three nights on the Brodick visitor moorings, going ashore in Worm in order to catch the bus and do some sightseeing. Arran is advertised as “Scotland in miniature” and even in the wet weather we had there was plenty to enjoy.

The weather promised to be dry on Monday, with light north westerly winds. We went ashore to buy bread and pies, then came back to Robinetta and got ready to leave. I turned the engine on to warm up, but we raised the main and stay sails on the mooring and Julian sailed Robinetta very slowly away at 09:00.

We were not in a hurry, and dawdling along at 2 knots gave us an opportunity to deploy the mackerel line. Four fish jumped onto it, so Julian put 2 of them back, leaving us one each for lunch.

By 10:40 the wind had died away to nothing, so we put the engine back on, set George to work helming, and admired the scenery. We were heading for Millport, the main town on Great Cumbrae, maybe just for a lunch stop, maybe overnight. It was lovely to have no agenda.

After an hour the wind got up enough to sail again, so we turned the engine off, but kept George at work, using our solar panel to power him. The sky was blue, the seas were flat, and the visibility was perfect. We could even see the Paps of Jura over the Kintyre peninsula. Waverly came out from between the Cumbraes, possibly heading for Brodick, and I could see 12 yachts under sail. A little more wind would not have hurt, but otherwise conditions were wonderful.

We got the sails down before heading into the Cumbrae channel. We had never been into Cumbrae before, and our chart plotter did not show the breakwater that has been created between off lying rocks to give better shelter, so it seemed sensible to enter under engine although Julian did have up to date charts on his phone.

There are 14 visitor moorings at Millport, and every one of them was taken when we got there. We were wondering if we should go on, or anchor, when the yacht Scooby-Doo came past. We have seen her before at Holy Loch, and he called out that it was good to see Robinetta again. I shouted over that all the moorings were taken, to which he replied, “That’s what anchors are for.”

He was right. I set out 20m of chain, and we dropped anchor next to Scooby-Doo. Five minutes later there was a vacant mooring. In the next 30 minutes at least 5 moorings came free, but the yachts kept coming as well as leaving, and they were never available for long. Once of the yachts that arrived was Carrie, a Heard 23 we had seen at Peel and that lives in the Clyde. We invited her skipper over for a cup of tea, then settled down for a quiet evening.