Exploring the Firth of Lorn on the west coast of Scotland in a Shetland Family Four, summer 2009

Part 1 – The Sound of Mull, Tobermory, Loch Sunart and Loch Spelve

This year, we decided to base ourselves at Dunstaffnage in Argyll and explore the Firth of Lorn area in our Shetland Family Four, Swannanoa. During the winter, we had had the benches in the cabin reupholstered, had replaced the cooker, installed a porta-potti, bought a second anchor and chain, removed the old antifoul, had the main engine serviced, had sorted out the impellor problem with the auxiliary engine, and had built a new lighting board for the trailer after the original plastic one had eventually given up the ghost. We had also purchased an inverter so that we could run 230v appliances off the 12v batteries.

Similar to last year, the idea this year was that the three of us would live on the boat for the first two weeks, then enjoy the luxury of a cottage for the final week. The fortnight prior to our slot had been superb weather in Scotland, and we were rather apprehensive as we headed west that we had probably chosen the wrong time again, that we had missed all the good weather and would be confined to port for three miserable weeks of continuous rain. This wasn’t helped by encountering a sharp downpour just as we arrived, and being told by a sunburnt “yottie” that they had just had a superb sail up to Tobermory and back, and that was probably the last of the fantastic conditions.

We launched Swannanoa in Dunstaffnage Marina, just north of Oban. The slipway is quite shallow, and for the first time we had to reverse the car wheels just into the water to get enough depth for the boat to float free. Car and trailer parking, toilets, showers, and laundry facilities were included in the charge of £12 a day for a pontoon berth (Figure 1), £5 for the parking only if we weren’t at the berth. The showers had to be the best in Scotland. We could come and go as we liked, just keeping a tally of the days in and out, and settle up at the end. A good pragmatic deal, we thought, and mentally added it to our list of excellent marinas to return to sometime in the future.

Our berth at Dunstaffnage Marina

Despite more rain overnight, we awoke in the morning to calm seas, and with the sun trying to peek through the clouds. It looked promising, so we decided to take our chances and head up the Sound of Mull to Tobermory, a distance of 25 miles. After a breakfast of our traditional bacon butties, showering, filling up with fuel and water, and setting the route on the GPS, we eventually left from Dunstaffnage at about 1100, heading for the Lismore lighthouse across the Lynn of Lorn. The sea was as smooth as a millpond with touches of mist which added to the Celtic mystique of the place, but which soon disappeared as the sun rose. We rounded the lighthouse about an hour later, with Lady’s Rock just off to port, and Duart Castle just in front of us (Figure 2). Scotland is nothing if not for its history and castles, and this was only the first of many that we encountered on our voyages. Built imposingly on a cliff-top and guarding the entrance to the Sound of Mull, Duart Castle is the ancestral home of the MacLean clan, and, after having been renovated from the early 1900s and completed in 1995, is still being lived in and is also open to the public. We sailed in close to the cliffs, passing over the spot where three of Oliver Cromwell’s ships had sunk in 1653 in an abortive attempt to arrest the then occupant of the castle, a 10-year old clan chief, no less!

 
Duart Castle at the southern entrance to the Sound of Mull

Lady’s Rock that we had just passed also has a great story associated with the MacLeans. Apparently, back in the 16th century, the clan chief of the time was married to a daughter of the Earl of Argyll. It seems the couple didn’t get on too well (some versions have her attempting to murder her husband on several occasions, so perhaps he had reason!), so he hatched a cunning plan to rid himself of her which involved marooning her on the rock, which is exposed at low tide but is covered at high tide. However, just as the waves had reached the level of her neck, her plaintive cries were heard by some Lismore fishermen who rescued her and returned her to her father’s family. The Duke kept this quiet until MacLean decided to tell him in person the bad news about his daughter’s demise, then at a critical moment, the doors opened and the daughter appeared, much to the discomfort of MacLean, who tried to make his escape, but before he could do, was struck down and killed by the Earl.

Feeling a bit peckish after all this bloodthirsty Scottish history, we decided to keep on going to the next village, Craignure, and see if we could get some lunch. The weather forecast from the coastguard on the VHF had just mentioned the possibility of showers, and sure enough, it was looking a bit threatening further up the Sound. We found Craignure tucked in behind the promontory at the north-west end of Duart Bay, and moored at the old jetty at the south end of the bay. It was just low tide with only about 70 cm of water, so we took it carefully. The Craignure Inn was just five minutes walk from here, so we grabbed one of the tables outside, and had a very enjoyable lunch in the sunshine looking across to the Morvern Peninsula on the mainland, watching the Caledonian-MacBrayne ferries coming and going, their sheer size dwarfing Swannanoa. As luck would have it, there was a second-hand bookshop next door, so we spent a pleasant couple of hours browsing there, as well as exploring the rest of the small village.

View from Craignure up Loch Linnhe towards Lismore and Ben Nevis.

Unfortunately, the combination of warm sunshine and pleasant browsing lulled us into taking our eyes off the weather, and it took the first spots of rain to make us realise that the thundery storms that had been forecast had arrived. Realising that we still had to get to Loch Aline where it would be relatively sheltered from the wind from the north-east that had sprung up, we rushed back to the pier, and clambered aboard the boat, pretty much soaked by this time. The tide had risen about a metre, and an increasing wind was blowing onshore, so we had to be careful about untying the boat and heading off out to the Sound. The rain became heavier, and looked to be setting in, a bit more than just a shower. Hardly able to see where we were going by peering through the small windscreen with no wipers to clear it, we set a course on the GPS to avoid Glas Eileanan, the Ridire Rocks and the Yule Rocks, and headed for Ardtornish Point with its ruined castle, and from there to the entrance to Loch Aline. Sailing more or less blind, when the light on Glas Eileanan loomed out of the mist and rain to our port about 20 minutes later, we breathed out in relief that we had got our coordinates right. Another half an hour took us past Ardtornish Point and into the relative calm of Loch Aline (Figure 4), where we dropped anchor in 7 m of water and began to relax. At least until we heard the weather forecast on the VHF that evening, predicting Force 4/5 winds from the northwest.

We decided to put out two anchors just to be sure, and to note carefully the GPS position to see if we were dragging. The new anchor is a 6kg Bruce, while our old one is an 8kg Danforth, each with a 40 m chain and warp, and both with good holding power. Over dinner on the boat, we kept a watchful eye on the GPS, but despite strong gusting from the NW for several hours, the coordinates didn’t shift an inch. Reassured, but for double measure, we set the GPS anchor drag alarm. As it turned out, we needn’t have worried – just before we settled for the night, the wind dropped completely, and we had a calm and peaceful night’s sleep, wakening in the morning to millpond conditions, with a fine view to the top of the loch with its prominent clock tower.  

Anchored in Loch Aline.

Despite the forecast being for continued Force 4/5 winds, we decided to press on to Tobermory, now about 10 miles away. Following our usual hearty breakfast, we headed out of Loch Aline into the Sound, only to find that the wind had whipped up quite a chop with whitecaps. Nevertheless, ‘Swannanoa’ took it all in her stride, even when we turned directly north-west into the wind after Fiunary Rocks opposite Salen and the waves were approaching a metre or so in height. As her bow plunged into each successive wave, spray was thrown right over the windscreen, drenching the cockpit and forcing us to put on our waterproofs and to stow all the non-waterproof items into the cabin. Being obviously too rough to plane, we had to keep her to displacement speed of about five knots, so that it was getting on for an hour and a half of buffeting and soaking before we finally drew level with Calve Island which protects the southern entrance to Tobermory harbour. We briefly considered taking the shortcut through the Doirlinn a’Chailbhe channel on the south side of Calve Island, but rapidly dismissed the idea due to it being nearly low tide so that the rocks at its entrance would be too close to the surface, and took the route to the northern entrance instead. Although it had been enjoyably exciting coming up the Sound, it was a relief to reach the relative calm of Tobermory harbour and find a berth at the pontoons (£12 per night, showers extra).

Coming into Tobermory harbour.

The winds continued from the north-west for the next couple of days, so we decided to explore Tobermory (“Where’s the pink castle, Dad?”) until the whitecaps out in the Sound disappeared. We had been here several times before, but it was always good to come back to the brightly coloured houses nestled at the base of the cliffs surrounding the waterfront (Figure 5) and its picturesque fishing boats (Figure 6), despite is being somewhat touristy at this time of year. Perhaps a sign of the times, particularly on the west coast of Scotland, was the conversion of the church in the middle of the town to a Spar supermarket, shelves stocked full of household items now where the devout citizens used to worship, an irony that wasn’t lost on us! Neither on two elderly matrons that we passed chatting in the main street: “Yes, it is simply awful making a supermarket of all things out of that beautiful church, isn’t it?”. We had a coffee at the Western Isles Hotel overlooking the town, and ate that evening at the ‘must-do’ Café Fish restaurant above the Tourist Information Office, at which we were lucky enough to have a window table so that we could see the boats entering and leaving the harbour. The fish couldn’t have been fresher, the service excellent, and while it wasn’t cheap, it was a dinner to remember.

Fishing boats in Tobermory harbour.

Browsing in the little second-hand bookshop nearby, I happened to come across Neil Gunn’s book “Off in a Boat”. Written back in the 1930s, it tells of how Gunn gave up his job in Inverness, bought a more-or-less derelict boat on Skye, and together with his wife and brother, decide to sail it back to Inverness via the west coasts of the islands of Skye and Mull, Eigg, Oban, Loch Etive, Loch Linnhe, and the Caledonian Canal. Unknowingly, we ourselves had been retracing sections of his voyage over the last three years! It was fascinating to compare what he had written about various places then with they way they are now, and while clearly there had been many changes in many things since then, particularly in relation to the villages and towns they visited, I was surprised to see how little other things had changed. As one might expect, natural features such as rocks and reefs and other hazards were still there as he described them. Even many of the man-made navigational aids such as lights and transit points were still the same.

Eventually, after a couple of days, the wind dropped, and the Sound became calmer. We decided to head up into Loch Sunart, and overnight in the beautiful little Loch na Droma Buidhe (Drumbuie), which we had seen on a previous trip a couple of years ago, and had made a mental note to return sometime. Leaving Tobermory harbour, we thought that we might try our luck at spotting some minke whales on the way, which by all accounts had been seen in the area north of Ardmore Point earlier in the week. We had also seen them while on holiday on Mull in 2003. Heading northwards, and taking care to keep the large green buoy marking New Rocks to our starboard, we circled around a few times keeping a watchful eye out for the whales, but all to no avail. Wherever they were that day, we certainly didn’t see any! A little bit disappointed, we eventually headed into Loch Sunart and the entrance to Loch na Droma Buidhe, keeping to the north of Red Rocks about a mile north-west of Auliston Point.

Loch na Droma Buidhe was just as we remembered it from last time – peaceful and calm. Taking care to avoid the submerged rock just after the entrance (which we had nearly hit the previous time!), we sailed over to the far end of the loch where two other yachts were anchored, and dropped anchor next to them in 5 m of water. On with preparing and eating dinner, followed by a relaxing evening sipping wine and reading in the warm evening sun, watching its rays dancing on the small ripples of the loch before it disappeared below the far-off coastline of Mull, the occasional fish jumping out of the water with a splash. Surrounded by this sort of scenery, who could wish for more, we asked ourselves!

We awoke in the morning around 0600, with the sun shining on the hills around, and the water like a mirror. The boats had all swung around on their anchors during the night, but again, our anchor had remained where we had put it, not that there had been an awful lot of strain on it. We decided to set off for Tobermory without any further ado (Figure 7), so raising the anchor, we set off, taking care to avoid the Little and Big Stirks which are covered at high tide, as well as the Caledonian-MacBrayne ferry heading for Coll. Still no minke whales to be seen! Taking just over an hour to cover the 5.5 miles, we arrived back in Tobermory, where we had a leisurely breakfast, showered, and refuelled, before setting off again down the Sound of Mull. It was a little bit choppy at first, but the cloud soon cleared away, the wind dropped, the water became smooth, all making an absolutely perfect summer’s day. Before long, lunch, and somewhere to have it, started figuring in our thoughts. Salen was the next village, but apart from two derelict piers, it looked too difficult to land. Fishnish, where the ferry from Loch Aline comes in, seemed to be a possibility, but as it consisted only of a ferry slipway and little else, we decided to press on. That left Craignure, where we had stopped on the way up. Anchoring this time in the small harbour, we unpacked the rubber dinghy for the first time, pumped it up, and set off rowing for the shore. Lunch was sandwiches in the sunshine on the rocky beach, watching the ferries come and go, with Lismore in front of us stretching out up Loch Linnhe, and the mountains around Fort William, including Ben Nevis, shimmering in the far distance. Awesome!

Leaving Loch na Droma Buidhe to enter Loch Sunart, with the Ardnamurchan Peninsula in the background.

Feeling very relaxed and content at this stage, we then decided to head down the Mull coast, past the William Black Memorial Tower on Duart Point with its flashing red and white lights, on to Loch Don and Loch Spelve, then listen to the weather forecast, and decide whether to stay overnight. Loch Don didn’t look particularly exciting, so we kept on going until we got to the entrance to Loch Spelve. At that point, we heard the coastguard weather forecast, which seemed promising, so we decided to enter into the loch and stay the night. The entrance has a shallow shoal on its southern side, so you need to keep close to the northern side following the curve around in about 5 m of water, keeping south of the green light marking the Port na Saille rocks until entering the main part of the loch. The small village of Croggan, with its telephone box and derelict pier, lies on the southern shore, and long lines of buoys roped together in neat rows for mussel farming on the northern shore. Mussel farming is an important source of income for the communities here, providing jobs so that people don’t have to leave the island. The mussel larvae attach themselves to the ropes which dangle 20 m into the water, and those that avoid being eaten by starfish and eider ducks grow until they are mature two years later, when they are harvested to eventually end up on Little Chef menus and the like.

By this time, the wind had gone around to the south-east and was quite gusty, so we cruised slowly into the north-east arm of the loch and found a sheltered spot to anchor in 7 m of water (Figure 8) behind the small island of Eilean Amalaig on which several seals were basking in the fading rays of the sun. Luckily, at around 2000h, the wind dropped completely, and we had another superb calm and still evening sipping our wine, watching the sun go down behind Beinn Talaidh at the back of the loch, listening to the seals splashing, a heron flapping lazily past, the oystercatchers keening, and fish jumping. At one stage, the boat was surrounded by a school of orange-coloured Lion’s Mane jellyfish, their bells pulsating and long tentacles trailing behind them. These can give a nasty sting and are definitely not ones to tangle with.

Anchored in Loch Spelve for the night.

In the morning we enjoyed another leisurely ‘bacon buttie’ breakfast, then we set off, heading across the Firth of Lorn for Oban. The weather forecast had mentioned a Force 8 gale on the way from the south-west arriving ‘later’, so we thought that it wouldn’t be a bad idea to get a bit closer to Dunstaffnage where we could sit it out. Back out of the main entrance of Loch Spelve, we then set a course of almost due east for the southern tip of Kerrera, some five miles off. To the south, we could see Insh and Seil Islands, and further away, the Garvellachs, Lunga and Luing, and tried to pick out Puilladobhrain and the ‘Bridge over the Atlantic’. However, mesmerised by the fantastic scenery and coasting along at only five knots to make the most of it, we forgot to allow for the southwards tidal stream, and it wasn’t until we noticed that we were heading towards the partially submerged and aptly named Dubh Sgeir, the ‘Black Rock’, in the middle of the Firth that we realised what was happening. A quick scan of the tide tables and the chart told us that we were being carried southwards at almost a knot. Trying to remember back those evenings of navigation exercises on the RYA Day Skipper course, we worked out a new course to allow for this drift, and passed by just northwards of the splashing foam of the rock. It wouldn’t have done to run into it!

We eventually reached the south-west tip of Kerrera, just off Bach Island, and aimed for the ruins of Gylen Castle clearly visible on a rock promontory, and anchored in the bay to go ashore for our lunch. Apparently, it had been built in the late 1500s by the McDougalls, but had been besieged and then burnt down only 65 years later in Scotland’s religious wars. Despite its being strongly built, the besiegers had just cut off the water supply until the soldiers inside surrendered due to thirst! We couldn’t help thinking that that might have been one of the first things they would have thought of before building the castle! Since then it had lain derelict until being restored only recently with money raised by the modern day McDougalls and Historic Scotland. We followed the winding path up to the castle from the small stony beach where we landed (Figure 9), and spent the next couple of hours just enjoying the view and warm sunshine, and watching the kayakers in the bay below us practising rolling their kayaks. On a good day like the one we had, Gylen Castle has got to have one of the most spectacular views of any castle in the world, over the Firth of Lorn from Loch Feochan on the mainland to the south-east, to the Slate Islands and Garvellachs to the south, and across to the coast of Mull to the west (Figure 10). We made a mental note to try and come back before we left.

Swannanoa anchored in Castle Bay on the south coast of Kerrera.

Gylen Castle overlooking the Firth of Lorn. Garvellachs in the distance.

Remembering the gale warning, we eventually decided to leave this beautiful place, and make our way slowly back to Dunstaffnage. With the rubber dinghy being towed behind, we headed up Kerrera Sound towards Oban. Two porpoises passed us on the way, heading south, but when we turned around to try and get another glimpse of them, they disappeared. We eventually arrived in the busy port of Oban, carefully avoiding the Sgeir Rathaid reef in the middle of the harbour marked at each end by yellow cardinal buoys. Unfortunately, after nearly a week of peace and quiet, the general bustle of activity and crowds of holidaymakers put us off landing there, so after a wide sweep around Oban Bay, we continued northwards between Maiden Island and the rocks off Dunollie Castle, and from there along the coast back to Dunstaffnage Marina. We did, however, feel more in the mood after we had showered and tidied up, and drove in to Oban later and treated ourselves to delicious pizzas on the North Pier, during which we were lucky enough to see a family of dolphins playing in the bay in front of us, and a fantastic sunset heralding the arrival of the Force 8 gales just two hours later (Figure 11).

Sunset over Mull from Oban.

Part 2 of our cruising adventures around the Firth of Lorn will follow. The full set of our holiday pictures are at http://www.flickr.com/photos/rbmatthews/sets/72157621789531551/ for anyone that is interested. (For best results, press the Slideshow icon up in the top right hand corner, then the "Show Info" option, again in the top right hand corner, then the full screen option (the four arrows pointing outwards in the bottom right hand corner).