Moondog had been resting for a week in Troon, and Claire and John rejoined at Troon for the final few days back home....obviously gluttons for punishment! There was however a certain symmetry, since they had been with me for the first long leg to Ireland at the start of the ‘voyage’.

Today was to be an easy trip down the coast and then into Loch Ryan, to Stranraer ( 54:54.50N, 05: 01.7W). The Tides in this part of the world are fairly minimal, so we were free to pick a civilised 9.20am start from Troon, having fuelled up first. The weather was a bit mixed, but not too bad, with a good F4 most of the day. However, the wind was, as usual, more or less on the nose from the SW for much of the day, so we were motorsailing into wind.

The very distinctive island of Ailsa Craig was our main ‘mark’ during the day. In fact, Trinity House may as well put a light on the top of Ailsa Craig and it would be the only navigation aid you would need in the whole S Clyde area. As we passed between Ailsa Craig and Girvan on the mainland we crossed paths with a small open wooden boat taking day-trippers out to the island. Whilst the sea was technically ‘Slight’ ( in shipping forecast speak), there was a bit of swell and chop, and the trippers all seemed to be concentrating hard on the horizon......and they were barely half way to their destination when we saw them. I suspect this was unlikely to be the best day of their holidays.

With Ailsa Craig behind us we were soon approaching Loch Ryan, in rain and wind rising to a good F5 for a while, with a bigger sea. The main thing here is just to watch out for ferries entering and leaving the Loch from the new ferry docks at Cairn Ryan, which have replaced the old ferry terminal at Stranraer at the very end of the Loch. As we worked our way down the Loch the wind and sea moderated and we had a pleasant little cruise down to Stranraer admiring the rolling countryside. If you look at the map you will see that Stranraer is quite a detour inland, and we effectively have to retrace our steps to get back on our route to Peel, but it is very sheltered in a SW wind, and the forecast showed some risk of the wind increasing. This would have made Portpatrick, on the Galloway coast (and on our direct line to Peel) untenable. ....hence the decision to go out of our way to Stranraer.

The marina at Stranraer feels fairly exposed to the north, although they have recently built a small breakwater, which will reduce the swell coming in from the loch. However, I am not sure I would like to leave a boat long unattended here when there was any risk of strong northerlies.

 The marina was also much favoured by starlings...which all gathered on boat rigging as they came in from the fields at dusk. It was quite a performance, with squadrons of birds coming in and perching, and then the whole lot scrambling to do that swirling in the sky thing, much favoured by starlings, Then they would all come back and perch on rigging, until the next squadron came in, and then...repeat repeat. Until, they had all arrived...presumably there is a Brian Hanrahan in starling land, who counts them all out in the morning and all back in the evening...who then tweets (literally) that they are all accounted for. At this point they know it is time to go and roost for the night under a big concrete pier.

This last step is tricky for starlings, is there a cat under the pier? How are they going to find out? So, just like us, they all wait until some young impatient member of the group cracks and decides to go for it (much like us on Moondog waiting to follow someone into Amble harbour earlier in the voyage). If this pathfinder keeps tweeting it must be safe, and then.... whoosh....they’re all gone.

Incidentally, this experience also demonstrated how completely useless are the plastic owls / hawks that you can buy to put on your boat as bird scarers. We saw starlings and seagulls all around these ‘scarers’, and were told that starlings often use them as perches. We even saw one adventurous starling perching on the windex indicator at the top of a mast, flapping its wings to make it spin round, i.e. a starling merry go round.

Stranraer was a small quiet place, and we had a good pub meal and turned in for a fairly early start the next morning.