A sojourn in Oban

 When we have done long bike tours in the past, we have always enjoyed the respite of a few days off the bike to ‘smell the roses’. I am discovering it is the same with a boat trip. We have now been on the boat for six weeks and life afloat has become the norm.  It is good to have some time here in Oban - one of our ‘party ports’.  Bev, John and Rachel arrived in Oban yesterday. It is lovely to have Rachel back on the boat and to have the prospect of spending some time with our great mutual friends, Bev and John (and Toby dog of course).  Last night we found a super restaurant, Cuan Mor, who not only tolerated dogs but laid a special place for Toby, with a rug, bowl of water and dog biscuits. The meal for humans was great too. 

Rachel, Alan, Roger and I had rooms at the Oban Premier Inn for the night, leaving Mike some much needed space and peace.  Mike will be leaving the boat today and we are going to miss him.  He is a lovely sailing companion and friend. 

Later this morning we will sail the boat over to Kerrera where we will have a walk this afternoon, then meet Bev, John and Toby off the water taxi, ready for the OGA celebrations this evening. Tomorrow we will take the boat back to Oban North Pier ready for the second party night at Oban Sailing Club. 

We plan to leave on Monday morning. And to our delight, Bev will have the day sailing with us. John has very kindly offered to stay in Oban to collect our new water tank which is meant to be delivered by DPD - either to the North Pier office at Oban, or to the Marina at Kerrera. It has been a bit of a saga and I am keeping fingers crossed it turns up somewhere. 

Photos of Toby’s



welcome in the the restaurant, and beautiful Oban.

Parade of Sail 2.8 nms

Oban to Kerrara        0.85 nms


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Home at Last!

Image
We finished last week wondering how we would get our lovely boat fixed. The local man (rightly I think) felt we would be better served by getting a Yanmar dealer, but the one we contacted in Chichester was clearly not interested in taking on the job. There was another firm in Chichester, Cutler Marine, whose voicemail said they were closed for annual leave so on Monday this week, Roger was on the case at 9 a.m.  Success! Luke from Cutler Marine said he would be at the boat at 8 a.m. on Wednesday morning to investigate the problem.  Roger travelled down to Littlehampton by train on Tuesday to be there when Luke arrived.  What wonderful service - Luke arrived early bringing with him some spare parts he thought might be needed.  Not only is Cutler Marine a Yanmar dealer, but they look after 30 Crabbers in Chichester. By mid-morning Luke had fitted a new wiring harness, starter motor and ignition plate and we were back in business!  I was about to go out with the local Ramblers group (expe
Read more

A safe harbour

Image
 Our exit from the Caledonian Canal felt like ‘speedy boarding’.   They really pulled the stops out and from our first bridge at 8.20, everything else was seamless, locks, bridges, and finally the sea lock, all open for us.  We were safely tied up in Inverness Marina by mid morning. We liked the marina and Inverness very much. The city is attractively built on both banks of the River Ness and we enjoyed a run in the morning and an Indian meal later that night.  We had been intending to aim for Lossiemouth the next day, then Whitehills, then Peterhead but we looked at the weather forecasts and decided we didn’t have the luxury of taking three days as the weather was definitely looking stormy on the Saturday. This has turned out to one of our better decisions.  On Thursday we sailed straight to Whitehills. It was a long day but a good one. We made excellent progress all day and covered the 60 miles in 12 hours, arriving at Whitehills at 21.00.  The entrance to the harbour was magical.  F
Read more

Not quite the finishing straight

Image
 Well sailing keeps springing surprises. Up until around six o’clock last night we expected to complete our circumnavigation either today (Friday) or tomorrow.  Only 37 more miles to go. It was not to be.  Everything was going really well. We have loved having Georgina on the boat and we had a great day’s sailing from Dover to Eastbourne which ended with a delightful meal with Martin (and Jack the dog) and Barbara in an Italian restaurant.   Eastbourne Marina is some distance from the town itself and entry and exit is via a lock.  We were moored by the lifeboats and saw the crew come home happy from whatever rescue they had been engaged in.  The next day (yesterday) we headed for Littlehampton. Littlehampton has a bar to cross so entry and exit has to be a couple of hours either side of high tide. The earliest we would safely be able to get in was 5 p.m. so we didn’t have to have a very early start.  We refuelled at Eastbourne and came out of the lock around 10 a.m. Before long we were
Read more