Another lazy sunny morning, with us finally leaving Tarbert at 1030, heading for Rothesay ( 50:50.3N, 005:03.0W).

As we left Tarbert we decided that it was getting to morning coffee time, so decided to pop in to Portavadie Marina, which is just opposite Tarbert on Loch Fyne. This was a trip of 3 miles, and we were soon moored up in what has to be the most luxurious marina in the UK. Massive pontoons, plenty of space and brand new facilities. In fact ‘facilities’ hardly does justice to the restaurant and marble tiled loos, which would put a five star hotel to shame. Everything is modern steel and glass, and shiny new. 

After a late coffee , the place was filling up with the lunch crowd, and heaven knows where they were all coming from, since this is a fairly remote spot. One thing was certain ; they had not sailed there. We began to feel as if we were being tolerated in our rather well used sailing gear to add some sailing ambience to the lunch experience of Scotland’s ‘lunch set’. Perhaps we should have charged them for the appearance.

Anyway, they were friendly enough, and we decided to add to their entertainment by winching me up the mast when we returned to the boat. This was a fairly half hearted attempt to fix a loose wind indicator on the top of the mast. Not being that keen on heights, and slightly troubled at the real time teaching of winch handling with Michael whilst I was fixed to one end of the rope going through the winch, we soon abandoned the attempt. But I am sure the diners approved and probably tipped the waiters for organising such a jolly show. We all elected to leave the windex repair to the boatyard men in Troon later in the week.

After  lunch we left the luxury of Portavadie and sailed through the very pretty  Kyles of Bute. This was a real exercise in short tacking and looking for wind shifts, and we actually did rather well, and caught some good lift to take us right up to the top of the Kyle, dropping sail to motor through the tide at the Burnt Islands. It was then a case of pottering down to Rothesay for our mooring for the night. It was on this leg that we had the closest of several encounters with the old steam paddle steamer the Waverley....very impressive.

Rothesay turned out to be something of a contrast to Portavadie. A Victorian seaside retreat that had seen better days, and a marina tucked in behind the ferry berth, with no facilities. We were unable to find anywhere to eat , and even the fish and chip shop looked as if it should be avoided. We all agreed that this was a night for getting the boat cooker messy, and we had a good boat dinner of fairly random ingredients lurking in the food lockers, mixed with some steak from the Co- op in town. Excellent, but we all agreed it lacked the panache of Chris’ home picked mushrooms. We made up for it though with a tub of Ben and Jerry’s between the three of us.....probably only slightly less harmful than the mythical deep fried Mars Bar. We probably could have found one of these in Rothesay, but thought it better to leave for another day.