How sweet is the Clyde?

It was time to be back on the water but to begin with, our hulls stayed dry.


We took the ferry crossing to the Cowal peninsula on the west side of the Firth of Clyde. This is Western Ferries' MV Sound of Scarba which runs from McInroys Point to Hunter's Quay. If you plan to use this crossing, you can get discount tickets in Paul's Food and Wine shop at 94, Shore St, Gourock. A return ticket for car and driver is £27.20 if bought on the ferry or £15 bought in Paul's! If you are travelling from the Cowal side you can get the same discount tickets at Sandbank General Store and Post Office.


It was a great morning to be out on the Clyde with views in every direction. As the MV Scarba motored out of McInroys Point at 7am, we passed the MV Nordstrand at anchor. She is an 88.3m grain carrier and was waiting for high tide to make her way up to Glasgow. In the distance, the mouth of Loch Long leads into the Argyll mountains.


A few moments later, the Calmac ferry, MV Saturn, passed on her way from Dunoon to Gourock.


The view to the south showed the Cloch lighthouse and the distant hills of Arran above Bute. MV Aasli, a bulk carrier was making her way up the Clyde with a cargo of granite aggregate from Glen Sanda.


Straight ahead, the houses of Hunter's Quay and Strone flanked the entrance to the Holy Loch.


As we crossed into the middle of the Clyde we saw the Inverkip power station chimney behind the Cloch lighthouse and the steep slopes of Little Cumbrae island on the horizon.


Looking back up the Clyde, past the MV Nordstar, we could see the Maersk Line ship, SeaLand Performance at anchor off Greenock. She was being readied for sea after having spent the recession laid up in Loch Striven for nearly a year. She was finally towed out of Loch Striven on 21st May 2010. Just behind the SL Performance, you can see the capsized hull of the MV Captayannis, which was wrecked here in a storm in 1974. She is known locally as "the sugar boat" and is a popular sea kayaking destination. Her full cargo of sugar soon dissolved in the murky waters of the Clyde.

A tour of the Clyde Lochs and rocks

A tour of the Clyde lochs and rocks from Lunderston Bay, Firth of Clyde, 30km, January 2010.


The Cloch lighthouse.

Two iconic, but ultimately impotent, towers on the Clyde

Keeping an eye open for ferries at Gourock

Little and Large on the Clyde: Ocean terminal and Kilcreggan pier

A warm glow in a wintery Loch Long

The number 475 bus and an occasional sea kayaker

A nice shade of grey, in Hunter's Quay

Dunoon, and her unused new pier

The Gantock Rocks

Passing ships in the night.


Photo album map.

A nice shade of grey, in Hunter's Quay

We crossed the Holy Loch and arrived at Hunter's Quay just after MV Sound of Sanda had landed and was offloading her cars. We quickly made our way round her stern (that would become her bow) and found ourselves paddling below more fine Victorian villas. Hunter's Quay was established in 1816 when James Hunter bought the local Hafton Estate. He built a quay in 1828 and extended it to a pier in 1858, as other people moved into the village and built villas there. The last steamer called at the pier in 1964. Then in 1973, Western Ferries bought the pier and opened up the frequent sailings to McInroy's Point at Gourock.


On the beach below a large villa we came across "The Jim Crow". The rock has been painted like this for more than a hundred years but during the night of 21st June 2009, it was painted over all in grey. This caused much local debate and was reported in the Dunoon Observer. Some people think the rock just looks like a crow. Other people think that the name refers to the "Jim Crow laws" that segregated black and white people in the USA from 1876 till 1965.

As you can see, The Jim Crow has since been restored. I don't know what American servicemen from the Holy Loch thought of it. Maybe it is just a crow but it's not a very attractive crow. Just because something has been there a long time does not make it right. Neither does the fact that many may not appreciate its significance to others. I certainly am not one for overzealous political correctness (I call things black and white boards, not chalk and pen boards) but in this case, I think the rock, and Hunter's Quay, would look better if it were a nice shade of grey.

The number 475 bus and an occasional sea kayaker

From Loch Long we rounded Strone Point and entered the Holy Loch.


We stopped briefly on the beach below the Strone Inn. Smoke was rising lazily from its chimney, hinting at the warmth within. We were so cold that we would have loved to stop for a sample of its hospitality but we knew we had to press on.


We watched as the sun slowly set over the Holy Loch. The Holy loch is 4km long and about 1.2km wide. Most people remember the Holy Loch for the US Polaris submarine base, which was stationed here between 1961 and 1992. There was a huge floating dock with attendant ships moored right in the middle of the loch. In 1969, I remember the excitement when (as members of Troon Sailing Club) we were invited for a tour of the facility. Hamish Gow (who with his wife Anne were the first sea kayakers to reach St Kilda in 1965) was arrested in the early 1960's, after paddling out to a US Polaris supply boat and attempting to climb its heavily greased anchor chain as part of a CND protest. It is no wonder that if a sea kayak is seen anywhere near the UK nuclear submarine base at nearby Faslane on the Gare Loch , a Navy launch will escort it off the premises.!

Today, apart from ourselves and some sunbeams, the Holy Loch was empty.


We launched again and paddled out past Strone pier and into into the loch. It's not only the submarines that have left, the steamers that once brought life to Strone and the Holy Loch are long gone too. Now only the number 475 bus and an occasional sea kayaker stops at Strone Pier.