Troon to Crinan canal

Cervisia, Royston and I have now reached the east end of the Crinan canal. We are moored up in the canal basin at ardrishaig and have the canal to look forward to tomorrow.  We have three little helpers for the canal as my nieces are up here too. It's actually good to have people to help with the locks. My nieces parents Chris and Al are here too.

We set off at about 7am from troon. As we were motoring out of the harbour we saw a seal that had just caught its breakfast:  a nice big cod that it was just starting to devour, holding it with its flippers and taking chunks out of it while trying to avoid the attentions of the seagulls.

Once out in the open sea we had a great sail past Arran and then up Loch Fyne to the east end of the Crinan canal. Arran looks like a fantastic island with these amazing craggy granite mountains. I have only been there once. It was during the Scottish islands peaks race. We climbed and descended Goat Fell in the dark that time so am none the wiser as to what the scenery was like.

We had a great sail up Loch Fyne towards Ardrishaig. The wind was reasonably strong and from exactly the right direction so we had a beam reach all the way. At one stage the wind died a bit and we had the cruising chute up. This came down pretty quickly when the wind got back up to 20 knots apparent. We were going pretty quickly at that stage and cervisia was sailing along with her transom in the water: she had that much power. Sailing on these smooth seas in these winds is really fantastic.

One thing I enjoyed while sailing was listening to the royal wedding. This sounded really good on the radio. I have since seen the pictures and it looked really amazing. It's so great that it was such a fantastic occasion.

The lock keepers at ardrishraig were really nice and friendly. They we watching out for us and had the sea lock ready for us when we arrived. The lock is a bit different to the ones we are used to at portishead. There are no pontoons in the lock. You have to throw your lines ashore (luckily Royston is good at this as I am useless at this sort of thing). There are loads of mussels on the sea lock walls so you watch nervously as the lock rises and wonder whether the fenders are going to get lacerated to pieces by them.

We had a great barbecue on the beach once everyone had met up. We had a little fire made from the drift wood at the mid tide line that kept us warm. As the sun was going down the tide came in and we watched the tide put the fire out, returning the beach to it's former state. We then rearranged cervisia so that we've got 5 people sleeping aboard. Chris and al have got a little tent next to us. We are planning on getting the first lock on saturday and making a swift transit of the canal.