Colours

It seems we are endlessly fascinated by the colour of the water on which we float. This blog is littered with references to the different colours we have observed beneath us, possibly because it has been such an unexpected component of our sailing adventures, something we hadn't really thought about before now.

So once again I gaze over Cirrus's bow into the depths beneath and I can't resist an analogy as the water here is clearly a coca-cola bottle green (for those that can remember before cans). There is just a pale shadow 5 metres below us; our anchor is resting on the bottom of Loch Linnhe, just off the island of Lismore. It is not having to hold on very tight as the air is still and there is little current. The chain drops straight down and the water surface acts as a mirror so I lean over with a camera, catching my own reflection. Brightly coloured purple jellyfish waft by us as the light gradually fades into the long evening and by midnight of the longest day the sky here is bleeding with sunset-red streaks on wisps of cloud.

Motoring into the anchorage we had another view of the Great Glen, from the south west, here seen beneath a clear blue sky and with rare views of all the mountain tops, including the snow-capped summit of Ben Nevis. High pressure has descended on the Western Isles bringing crystal clear air and a sun which is browning our skin despite our best efforts to protect ourselves.

Next day we move on to the Isle of Mull which boasts one of the few sizeable towns in these parts, Tobermory, and this acts as a magnet for sailing boats despite it having no marina and few facilities to offer yachtsmen, unless of course you count the whisky distillery. But take a walk round the harbour and you'll soon realise that by colouring its houses like a children's TV programme, Tobermory has acquired fame far beyond its borders. There was even some local controversy here when a harbour pub wanted to break with tradition and paint its walls black, spoiling the themed look and risking losing thousands of visitors along the way.

The crowded harbour is a mass of white - most modern yacht builders cannot think beyond this as a colour for both the hull, the decks and the sails. Cirrus' two red hulls, cream decks and when sailing, her bright yellow genoa, make her stand out from the rest so she is uniquely recognisable from a distant shore, our own little feast of colour.

Finally I couldn't resist a picture of this strange piece of loch-side artwork. 'A fish out of water' comes to mind but when the tide returns to cover the rocks beneath, the effect must be even more bizarre.

Loch Solitude

The eight-day licence which permits us to transit the Caledonian Canal has almost expired as we approach the final spectacular flight of eight locks at Banavie, close by Fort William. Soon we'll once again have to contend with tides, currents and salt water and maybe we also need to prepare for sailing boats in greater numbers as the holiday season is nearly upon us.

One of the most striking features of the canal for us has been the absence of other boats. It was not uncommon for us to have a Scottish loch all to ourselves for the whole day, miles of water stretching out to the east and to the west, and we rarely shared a lock passage with another vessel. All this was unexpected. Indeed we had established emergency procedures for repelling wayward hire boats which might threaten our paintwork in the confines of the canal, knowing that there is nothing more dangerous than the tired driver who steps out of his car and slips behind the wheel of a boat, then expects it to line up with the pontoon as if he were parking at the kerbside. Kate was to rush forward with a roving fender to protect the impact site whilst I had practised a stony-faced glare guaranteed to keep anyone at bay. But in the end none of this expertise was needed simply because there were too few hire boaters about to bother us.

True, Urquhart Castle did seem to be getting its fair share of foreign tourists if the coach park was anything to go by but the view from the Loch in the sunshine, the aspect the tourists never see, was ours alone.

Thomas Telford would be a disappointed man were he alive today, disappointed because worldwide celebrity status around here goes not to his engineering masterpiece in the massive stone works of the canal but instead to the elusive creature living beneath the waters of its longest loch. So naturally I have to report on our own experiences after having now spent several midsummer nights afloat on its surface. Did Nessie put in an appearance?

The waters of Loch Ness are deep brown in colour as indeed is all the water throughout the length of the canal. Steep waves form easily here (steeper in fresh water than in salt) and the mountains which drop precipitously into the loch throw long shadows which reflect back inverted summits, distorted by any surface disturbance. No matter who first gave birth to the magical monster it is easy to see how it is perpetuated and who can blame the Scots for the monster replicas in purple plastic or wickerwork which are as much a part of the culture as scotch whisky. So maybe, just maybe, that flickering shadow far away across the loch was Nessie flicking her tail for us, who knows. None of this can take away the magic or the beauty of the place. It is just too big and too overwhelming for that.

The Great Glen

Somewhere back in the mists of time maybe when Britain was covered by ice sheets miles thick or then again perhaps even earlier, tectonic movements in the earth's crust did their level best to tear apart what was later to become Scotland, to divide it into two sections so that when in time the water flowed into the North Sea and created the island we now call Britain, the northern part of Scotland might have itself become a separate island. The tectonics narrowly failed but what they left behind was a divide across Scotland, cut deep as if with a giant axe. Where the blade buried deepest has now filled with water so deep that its depths lie lower than the lowest part of the North Sea itself, a dark water stained heavily with peat from the slopes falling into it. Loch Ness, as this water is called, is deeper than any water on the continental shelf upon which Britain floats, contains more water than every English and Welsh lake combined and is the largest volume of fresh water in the whole British Isles.

Such statistics are truly sobering here on Cirrus, moored on its surface as night falls. The steep sides of the Great Glen divert sudden gusts of wind down on us from the mountains around (sailors call these 'williwaws') although we are safe enough tucked into a little cove nearly half way along the loch's 26 miles length and surrounded by a tree-lined shore.

Our first view of the Great Glen came as we sailed west out of the Moray Firth towards Inverness.

Mysteriously it was as if the sky also divided, reflecting the land beneath. Our boat then had to raise itself to the level of Loch Ness through a series of locks, one a flight of four coupled together, great edifices of stone designed by Thomas Telford who also had a hand in many of the harbours we have been visiting over the last few weeks.

Finally the loch itself stretched before us

and the bottom sloped away. It was raining, of course, but then the water has to come from somewhere, I suppose.

All this contrasts strongly with the tiny Angus, Argyll and Moray harbours we have been popping into each night as we made our way along the coast, friendly places where everyone passing calls a greeting and the stranger is made to feel welcome. These places are built so that waves can sweep in only with difficulty. Invariably this means turning a sharp corner just as you enter and the harbour is hidden from view until the last moment. The inner harbour is always a surprise, usually pleasant, but in Banff we had an encounter rather more surprising than most. For just beyond the narrow entrance we encountered a JCB digger, a first for us, up to its knees (crawler tracks) in the water dredging sand from the bottom. After a friendly wave from the driver we motored cautiously past to take up a pontoon berth just beyond.

Where, you might ask, are the photos of this encounter. And likewise where are the photos of the dolphins which swam towards us as we approached and left Burghead harbour, big beasts coming close enough to look us straight in the eye from just beneath our bow.

Sadly on this occasion we missed these opportunities so your imagination will have to fill in for you.

Risk junkies?

Having been sailing for the best part of our married lives we know that the sea is a risky environment and that it will always have something unexpected up its sleeve, so to speak. There are few constants at sea. Just when you think the wind has settled blowing in one direction at a strength your boat needs to move along nicely something will change, either the wind or the sea itself, and sailing can be largely about managing the risks associated with this. So given that we enjoy being at sea, how then do we cope with being on land for any length of time. We always fully expected to find ourselves spending time in one port or another, not necessarily one we might choose to be in, waiting for weather to arrive that we were prepared to put to sea in. We have time on our side and can do this and we are prepared to amuse ourselves until the weather we want arrives. But life on shore could become mundane and boring in some hitherto unknown port if we did nothing but watch the clouds skim across the sky while huddled up under our sprayhood sheltering from the rain. In some way the strategy we have for coping with this situation explains why Cirrus is not sailing very quickly these days - she is just a little overloaded. She is weighed down with what can best be described as our 'toys', things we are carrying along with us so that we can cope with life away from the sea as well as we cope with life at sea. Perhaps the biggest single items in the toy cupboard are our bikes, Grace and Jet, neatly folded up in the starboard hull. Then we have books to read which we swap regularly at places along the way (many marinas have a book-swap shelf), our walking boots and rucksacks to take us wherever our legs will carry us and of course the mandatory scrabble and domino sets. But scrabble is hardly likely to give us the risk element we get from sailing so how do we get our fix when on land?

The answer to this lies not so much in what we do but more in where we do it. Take a recent Sunday cycling adventure, for example, where we found ourselves first of all traversing a busy golf course when members were queuing at each hole for the chance to score a direct hit on a cyclist then, having survived this, we crossed a main railway line and found ourselves on a cycle route past a military firing range with red flags flying and signs warning graphically "Anything you pick up may explode and kill you".

Or again, take a recent walk along the Seaton cliffs just outside Arbroath where the sea has shaped the Devonian sandstone into formations with names like the "Deil's Heid" or this one, the "Needle E'e". Warning signs here show just what happened to this foolish Johnny who strayed from the path and had to be rescued.

Clearly this is also a risky place to be and once again we have found the excitement we need to survive.

No such additional buzz was needed when we sailed around Rattray Head earlier today. This will be our most northerly headland on this trip and it has a fearsome reputation, more than anywhere we have previously sailed. The coastline is low-lying here and only a small stunted lighthouse guards what is one of the major corners of Britain. The tidal currents rushing past flow over off-lying shoals and can combine with strong winds to produce nightmares of turbulence that can swallow ships whole.

But pick the right weather and get up at 4.30am as we did to catch the tide at the moment it goes slack and you can sail benignly past and into the Moray Firth.

Our cockpit GPS chartplotter and log now show we have turned this corner, at 5.5 knots, and are now at last on course towards the Great Glen, the passage to the west coast of Britain.

Chasing the seasons

Like intrepid explorers of old we have been travelling slowly north for some two months now, moving at a speed governed by the weather, our inclination to go sailing, and more recently by considerations for the comfort of our sons who have joined us for a period as crew. Remembering back in April when we were cycling NCR1 in Kent, the roadside hawthorn blossom buds were just opening, the 'may' that the rhyme tells us to wait for before 'casting a clout'. Then as we journeyed north through the month of May, in Yorkshire clouds of white may blossom were once again all around us wherever we walked. Finally here we are in Angus on the east coast of Scotland, it is June and once again we see the hawthorn in bloom when we know that back in Kent the last petal has fallen to the ground weeks ago. (And incidentally once again we are on NCR1, the Dover to Inverness cycle highway, which seems to be always there waiting every time we step ashore.)

Spring this far north comes late, but when it does come it is all of a rush and the colours are rendered shockingly clear in the unpolluted air.

Mere photographs do not do justice to the feast nature puts on for us but I try to capture the smallest detail, even this bee in mid flight between flowers of the Viper's Bugloss (nice photo eh?).

It is our first visit to Arbroath and like many other harbours we enter from the sea not knowing what we will find inside. It is not a natural harbour, but is a small area captured from the sea many centuries ago and now protected by walls of grey stone and concrete. We motor carefully through a narrow channel in the off-lying rocks guided by two white posts set one in front of the other, leading marks, past the tough looking white-painted entrance, make a sharp right turn around a harbour wall then left again into the tiny inner harbour. There is a call of welcome from a boiler-suited harbour master, "Ah, two hulls!" (catamarans are not a common sight here) and he directs us to a pontoon berth just ahead. Immediately we feel at home in this world of fisher folk. This harbour has embraced the new prosperity offered by us pleasure boaters and we are surrounded by masts and clacking halyards on fibreglass yachts; the old has come to terms with the new.

Wafts of woodsmoke drift across the harbour reminding us that Arbroath is famous for its smoked haddock (they call them Smokies) something of a cottage industry that gives the town character and no doubt a rich source of income. The smell is not unpleasant and we are delighted to have found such a place to sit out the northerly winds and wait for some southerlies or westerlies to blow us further on our way. Not that we will be idle. There is washing to be done, cliff-tops to be explored and today there is even a town fete. Then in the evening we can do no better than visit the Foundry Bar to listen to some live Scottish music.

Finally, and this is just an observation, but in common with other places we have visited in Scotland, we find Arbroath richly equipped with public conveniences. We first encountered this unpublicised Scottish phenomenon in Edinburgh last week when we discovered the castle's own superbly well appointed facilities then, not a stone's throw from the rock on which it stands, at least two similar establishments. How different from many English cities where calls of nature must go unanswered.

The picture here, I hasten to add, is of Edinburgh's rock-bound castle, not of the convenience that lies within.

Firth of Forth

So here we are in the Firth of Forth's only substantial marina, situated in the ex-naval base of Port Edgar. And here we were 23 years ago, on holiday in our tiny 24 foot sailing
yacht when, in August 1986 we were the subject of one of the last SOS messages broadcast on Radio 4.

I still have a newspaper clipping from that day, probably the only time I have ever been the subject of a newspaper headline. Actually we weren't lost, as the headline suggests, we were simply recovering from a long passage on a small boat.

Because of what happened all those years ago this place has some sad memories for us but remarkably the marina here has changed little in that period. And the bridges under which we passed then and now still have the ability to astound and amaze.

The rail bridge is a creation with a shape which is just so individual that it hardly needs the caption it gets when it is reproduced on the Scottish £20 bank note. It is as timeless as when it was built nearly 120 years ago.

But wait a minute! There is something that has changed since we last cruised this coastline. There is an animal we have regularly seen in rivers all the way up the east coast from the Medway to the Eye and out at sea as well - the common seal - which is now present in far greater numbers than 20 years ago. Holy Island is reputed to have a population of some 2,000 and in the quietness of the night it was like some ghostly haunting, their mewing cries coming clear across the water into our anchorage.

In Eyemouth there are some that seem to have become completely 'harbourised'. In the same way that seagulls will live out their lives in a seaside town, dependant for food on what we give them (bread mostly) or on what they are bold enough to take for themselves, so these seals seem to be living on us too.

A small platform tethered from the quayside forms a stage where titbits lowered from above can entice the beast from the water for our enjoyment.

Elsewhere one fisherman seems to have almost established a bond

with one seal who followed his boat from the moment it arrived in the harbour. Then in a quiet corner of the harbour just behind where we were moored we watched as he tempted the seal with small fish from his catch then finally dropped them into its mouth, a scene clearly repeated every day with just the right amount of tease before the feed.

The distinction between seagull and seal, and probably what is so engaging for us, is the higher degree of intelligence evident in the seal's behaviour. Somehow we found ourselves uncomfortable with what we were watching although it is difficult to say why this should be any worse than feeding ducks in the park.

Meanwhile out on Bass Rock life goes on for the thousands of Gannets forever swirling in white clouds over the island. The white cap makes the rock stand out from its neighbours (white being the colour of both the birds and their droppings, such that it is difficult to distinguish one from the other) making it visible from many miles away on a clear day. Unlike 23 years ago, this time it was a fabulous day and we sailed the inside passage, between the rock and the North Berwick shore, in glorious sunshine, surfing down waves in a red boat just as we did then.