Friday, February 15, 2013

Misty morning melé in Millport!

It was a misty morning when we arrived at Largs on the Firth of Clyde. We had arranged to meet Ian in Millport Bay. Ian was going to cross over from Kilchattan Bay on the Island of Bute. Before I left, I checked ShipAIS as we would both need to cross shipping channels.  Fortunately there was nothing approaching the Hunterston Channel on our side of the Clyde but Ian had to contend with all 158,555 tons of the loaded tanker Yasa Scorpion which was heading up the Firth of Clyde Channel to Finnart.

After we loaded our gear, Phil went through the preflight check list, carefully counting to make sure he carried the requisite number of refreshment tins.

 Soon we were hitting the water, note where I left the spare pins for the Kari-tek Easy load roof rack!

The mist began to lift as we set off past the safe water buoy off the entrance to Largs marina.

We made good time down the Hunterson Channel past...

...the empty ore terminal.

The wind dropped as we crossed the channel to the Great Cumbrae.

Our arrival at the Eileans was greeted by these squabbling guard geese. They were not going to tolerate any landing on their turf.

However, we had raised Ian on the VHF and he was already at Millport, eating a hot sausage roll!

It was great to catch up and Ian had brought some really excellent Jura Superstition. Cheers!