I left you at Glenarm as I went looking for an Internet connection. The Bridge Inn of Glenarm offered free internet connection (and Guiness). At first I though it was shut for there were no exterior lights showing, not even a welcoming light in the doorway. Still, this is Ireland, so I shouldered the door open to find a pub that was open. The decor was dark brown - woodpanelling, floor and ceiling. It was dimly lit by a few low wattage bulbs. The window blinds were tightly shut. All ready for a lock in. It wasn’t full but had a lively crowd around the bar. A Guinness or two later, the latest dispatch in the blog was uploaded and the weather forecast downloaded and the pc put on charge.
Tomorrow would be a good day, with winds force 4 -5 in the morning, reducing to 3 – 4 in the afternoon, from the East or South East. Just right to blow us north west, to Port Ellen on the Isle of Islay.
Back on board Vagabond, I checked the tides. If we left about 11:00 we’d have an hour of weak tide against us and then 6 hours of tide taking us north and then west. I worked out the course, allowing for tidal drift. Due north would be good enough and the tide would give us the necessary westerly vector. (All those years at school / college” doing” vector analysis and the only time I’ve ever used it is to calculate tidal drift. As for vector calculus, I never did get the hang of that .....)
The next morning the sky was clear and there was the promised breeze. Whilst paying for the nights’ stay, I checked my reading of the tide table with the harbour master – ‘Yes leave an hour before Dover High Water and you’ll be fine – you’ll have Morecombe Bay emptying into the Atlantic and pushing you north. ‘
So, at about 10:45, I cast off and we left Glenarm, following in the wake of 4 other boats. ‘That’s good’, I thought, ‘some people to follow.’ The wind was blowing down the valley, out to sea. Up went the sails and we were off. About a mile from shore, the wind died. The boats ahead had no wind either.
On came Freddie. We rounded the headland at the northern end of the Bay and set course due North. Now it became clear that the yachts I was following were hugging the coast into the next bay. Perhaps there was a good lunch stop nearby. These haven't been a feature of our trip, so far, and I decided not to set a precedent, so we carried on to the North.
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| The clouds piled up behind us |
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| Fairhead |
The sun shone ahead. Clouds piled up across the land. The wind stayed absent. Freddie stayed on. The green valleys and rocky bluffs of County Antrim trickled past. Then Rathlin Isle came into view. We passed Fairhead, the last headland of Ireland, and plugged on northwards. The combination of Freddie, the tides, and the following sea pushing us along (in roughly the right direction) at over 8 knots for a time. In fact the wave patterns suggested there was a Southerly wind somewhere behind us. If there was, it hadn’t reached us. Those Paps of Jura, so prominent on the northern horizon last night, stayed stubbornly invisible. Had they been a mirage? Were we on a journey into the open sea? The chart re-assured me.
We approached the designated shipping traffic separation area. These are areas on the chart where real shipping is meant to operate in a sort of dual carriage way* of the sea, with designated lanes going (in this case) South East or North West. There are no buoys telling of these things, just lines on the chart. In theory, yachts are allowed in these areas but have to cross them by the shortest possible path. This would have meant a dog leg in our course and extended our journey by about 10 miles. ‘Bu@@er that’, I thought, ‘I’ve not seen a ship all morning. We’ll maintain our current course and speed’, and moved diagonally into the East bound lane.
We had just reached the ‘Central Reservation’ between the two lanes when a ship appeared, moving Eastwards. Phew!! We could have been run down. I shut Freddie down to refuel. The wind tell tales I had tied to the stays hung limply.
You’ll notice that all hi-tech wind indicators have now failed. The whirry thingy that told me the wind speed and direction (true and apparent) had been blown off during the gales in Eastbourne and the slightly less high tech wind vane had fallen off the mast when we had the jib incident on the way up from Holyhead to the Isle of Man. Our wind instrumentation is now reduced to that of the Cadet in which I learnt to sail 50 years or so ago.....a couple of pieces of material tied to the stays.
Freddie refuelled, we resumed our northward passage. Those Paps appeared on the horizon, seemingly quite close and then Port Ellen appeard, almost where I expected it to be, looking rather industrial with the Port Ellen Malting works very obvious.
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| The Malting works at Port Ellen. |
Now for some tricky navigation. Line up some radio aerials with a light tower until you pass a green bouy (letting it go past on the starboard side). Turn sharp right, lining up with the pier head, slide down the side of the pier and into a berth on the pontoon.
A fishing boat overtook me on the way in. As I manoeuvred us into a berth, the fishermen were unloading their catch whilst stopping the harbour seal from climbing into their boat to help.
Freddie off and rewarded with a fresh water rinse out (this pontoon has a hose – almost all pontoons so far have had water taps but the hoses have been withdrawn for ’Ealth ‘n safety’ reasons).
Now to look after the crew. I needed sustenance and didn't fancy the sandwiches that I had made yesterday. But, I had been to Port Ellen before and did not have high hopes as several years ago the Skipper and I had arrived here from Lough Swilley on a Sunday to find the place closed.
It wasn’t much different on Saturday. It was a sunny evening; the local pub beckoned. I found that ‘Drinks may not be taken outside, it’s against the law’. I quickly finished my pint in the dim interior.
‘Sorry, we don’t do food, try the hotel down the road’, said the publican. The skipper and I had tried to eat there before only to be told ‘We’re full’. This time it was different: I was told there were no tables, despite there being an empty one in the bar at which I sat. After I had read the local paper for half an hour, I was allowed to order food!
The local petrol station was next to the hotel. Freddie really needed his cans refilled but it was shut and didn't reopen until Monday. I resolve to leave Port Ellen as soon as possible and go back to Vagabind to look at the weather, the tides and where to go next.
We are at N 55deg 36.83 min, W 6 deg 12.79 min. We now turn Eastwards for a bit, to make our way up the Sound of Jura to somewhere near Oban and we won’t be further West than this until we round Ardnamurchan point, some 70 miles further North .
Fortunately the weather forecast tomorrow (Sunday) looks promising (SE F3 - 4, possibly 5 at first) and the tides will be sweeping up the Sound of Jura from about midday onwards.
* Transatlantic translation : Divided Highway
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