Gigha!

As far as is practical I have tried visit new ports on this trip rather than going to places we went to last time round. Gigha, an island north of the Mull of Kintyre however is a bit special and is well worth revisiting. 

John and I left Campbeltown at about midday to get the tide round the Mull. The guidance is that to avoid the worst of the turbulence its best to stay within quarter of a mile of the cliffs, which does provide some spectacular views. Once again we had light winds and motored for much of the time. We picked up a buoy in Ardminish Bay in Gigha about 7pm.

One welcome change since we're last here is that they have installed a very fine new dinghy pontoon - pictured.

The previous one was clearly unsafe and seemed to be held together by rust. The restaurant at the top of they quay seems to be under new ownership but still provides an excellent fish supper. Ron and Mieke on Hilda are here and we were interested to look over the Hilda - a Dutch lifeboat built in steel in 1922 that has been converted into a very comfortable and seaworthy cruising yacht.

Ardminish Bay is the site where Iskra, a gaff cutter owned by the writer Frank Mulville was wrecked. She was on a visitors mooring ( as we are) when a strong onshore wind blew up. She was only attached to the mooring buoy by a single rope which chafed through - not the sort of mistake you might expect from such an experienced seaman. The boat was driven ashore and wrecked. Rather surprisingly Mulville persuaded his insurance company that the boat wasn't a write-off and that they should  pay for the boat to be repaired in the West of Scotland by shipwrights that he bought over from Essex to do the work. All this is told in his book 'Rescue and Repair'. Sadly Mulville died some years ago but I believe that Iskra is still going strong.