Heading North
Red Bay to Jura, Saturday 5th August
What a difference a bit of sunshine and a glassy sea makes. Boating is fun again and the old girl is chuffing away again Northwards. No more dolphins but more gulls that we can accommodate, hitching a ride to the Inner Hebrides.
Strange that as we are leaving Cushendall in the dinghy the night before saling, it is disappearing behind us in the mist in the opposite way to when we arrived a week ago so rather like a Brigadoon.This is more so because everyone is much kinder there than anywhere else we have visited. Without fail we were offered help without limit. I was touched by their generosity and will be wanting to go back there again.
The voyage up to Jura was uneventful, apart from seeing our first beam-trawler in action. These are boats that have arms which extend over the sides and pull nets on either side of the boat; scouring the sea-bed for scallops, plaice, flounder, sole and other flatfish. Very dangerous work because the nets are more likely to catch and drag the boat sideways and down into the deep.
We are moored in the delightful (in a craggy way) Loch na Mile, very peaceful and looking forward to an afternoon shop. Fortunately we don't need any more soap as we ran out of tank water last night. Loads of water to drink however, but are using travel-wipes for the worst bits. This morning, whilst still in Irish-ish waters made an Irish stew with lamb from the butchers as Cushendall. It is fab stuff, mostly fillet and a bit of breast so is going to be tip-top.
In order to get some water to do washing-up and showers, we are going to take the dinghy to "town" and fill up four of our 22 litre drinking water bottles. I am hoping that because Jura is such a small community that they will use spring water for their taps and not the chlorinated town-water found in most other places. The taste test will be the thing
Have been sitting on the aft deck waiting to hear the fish alarm on the depth sounder go off, but there is nothing - then we saw why - a sleek large seal is patrolling the loch in at a very lordly manner.
Now that we are in Scotland it feels like we are actually getting somewhere, at least we are in the right country. Jura is lovely and our nearest neighbour is a fabulous big house with lots of lawn, surrounded by about 50 acres of established, mixed woodland, backed by the grey hills, the Paps of Jura.
We set off to town which consists of an hotel "The Jura Hotel" and one shop "The Jura Stores" and a bit of a pier. The island was in the middle of its regatta, lots of different rowing races and races with outboards. Oddly enough, most people organising and doing the shouting and ordering about were middle-class English people (which is often the case all over the world) and the real Jurans were probably sensibly in their fields or toasting their woolly-socked feet in front of their own peat fires with a glass of the essential in their hands. We had a wee dram ourselves in the Jura Hotel and very good it was too, overlooking the distillery that was shut for the weekend.
We managed to get the water loaded into the dinghy and now we have the means for washing. Great. But apart from that, the water is great to drink, very sweet and soft.
Irish stew tonight was fantastically good, not least because the weather was cool, grey and rather drizzly. It is forecast to blow a 4 or 5 tonight, and in fact it did, but because there was no tide to speak of, Heroine lay with her bow into the wind which was so steady we didn't wake until well after it was light.
What a difference a bit of sunshine and a glassy sea makes. Boating is fun again and the old girl is chuffing away again Northwards. No more dolphins but more gulls that we can accommodate, hitching a ride to the Inner Hebrides.
Strange that as we are leaving Cushendall in the dinghy the night before saling, it is disappearing behind us in the mist in the opposite way to when we arrived a week ago so rather like a Brigadoon.This is more so because everyone is much kinder there than anywhere else we have visited. Without fail we were offered help without limit. I was touched by their generosity and will be wanting to go back there again.
The voyage up to Jura was uneventful, apart from seeing our first beam-trawler in action. These are boats that have arms which extend over the sides and pull nets on either side of the boat; scouring the sea-bed for scallops, plaice, flounder, sole and other flatfish. Very dangerous work because the nets are more likely to catch and drag the boat sideways and down into the deep.
We are moored in the delightful (in a craggy way) Loch na Mile, very peaceful and looking forward to an afternoon shop. Fortunately we don't need any more soap as we ran out of tank water last night. Loads of water to drink however, but are using travel-wipes for the worst bits. This morning, whilst still in Irish-ish waters made an Irish stew with lamb from the butchers as Cushendall. It is fab stuff, mostly fillet and a bit of breast so is going to be tip-top.
In order to get some water to do washing-up and showers, we are going to take the dinghy to "town" and fill up four of our 22 litre drinking water bottles. I am hoping that because Jura is such a small community that they will use spring water for their taps and not the chlorinated town-water found in most other places. The taste test will be the thing
Have been sitting on the aft deck waiting to hear the fish alarm on the depth sounder go off, but there is nothing - then we saw why - a sleek large seal is patrolling the loch in at a very lordly manner.
Now that we are in Scotland it feels like we are actually getting somewhere, at least we are in the right country. Jura is lovely and our nearest neighbour is a fabulous big house with lots of lawn, surrounded by about 50 acres of established, mixed woodland, backed by the grey hills, the Paps of Jura.
We set off to town which consists of an hotel "The Jura Hotel" and one shop "The Jura Stores" and a bit of a pier. The island was in the middle of its regatta, lots of different rowing races and races with outboards. Oddly enough, most people organising and doing the shouting and ordering about were middle-class English people (which is often the case all over the world) and the real Jurans were probably sensibly in their fields or toasting their woolly-socked feet in front of their own peat fires with a glass of the essential in their hands. We had a wee dram ourselves in the Jura Hotel and very good it was too, overlooking the distillery that was shut for the weekend.
We managed to get the water loaded into the dinghy and now we have the means for washing. Great. But apart from that, the water is great to drink, very sweet and soft.
Irish stew tonight was fantastically good, not least because the weather was cool, grey and rather drizzly. It is forecast to blow a 4 or 5 tonight, and in fact it did, but because there was no tide to speak of, Heroine lay with her bow into the wind which was so steady we didn't wake until well after it was light.
posted by Pomme at 9:01 pm
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