This was a fairly uneventful day , motoring and sailing down to Troon ( 55:32.8N, 005:40.5W), once again in sunny weather.

 Our departure was delayed by watching the antics of a family of swans, or more particularly those of the adult male. The picture does not really convey what was going on. Essentially, the adult male...let’s call him dad, was pecking away furiously at the boat next to us, as he raced along the length of the hull with wings partly open and water spraying from his paddling. Then, when he got to the end of the boat, he stopped and all was calm. Then, he slowly craned his head and neck back to the side of the hull, and it all started again. It did not take long to work out that he was attacking the other swan reflected in the hull, which of course disappeared each time he ran out of hull at bow and stern, but was still hiding there for dad to spot when he carefully leaned over to take a final look. I am sure this would have gone on all day, had we not all cast off ...doubtless ‘dad’ was convinced that he had seen off the intruder.

All this distraction probably contributed to another of our mooring special events. This time we focused on trying to leave the pontoon without untying all the lines. This turned out to be much preferable to the earlier version of arriving and not properly tying on to the pontoon, and we were soon on our way.

 We sailed across from Rothesay on the Isle of Bute towards Largs, and then followed the coast down to Troon, with some really good sailing for the final leg, with a good breeze on the beam.

Troon is a well run marina, and as Cathy helmed us in we were pleased to see that they had arranged for a seal to meet us in the outer harbour. It was also unusual to have the strong smell of pine in a marina, which came from the piles of freshly cut logs on the dockside. All in all a good place to end this leg of the trip.