As idle as a painted ship, Upon a painted ocean.

Leaving Carradale Point on Kintyre a lovely NE breeze soon had us on our way across the Kilbrannan Sound towards...

...the dark wooded slopes of Tor Righ Beag on Arran. At 9km distant, this was just about the only landmark visible on Arran due to the haze. At first we made good progress: "The fair breeze blew, the white foam flew, The furrow followed free" until...

... "The bloody Sun, at noon, Right up above the mast did stand" Then the wind dropped and we were...

 "As idle as a painted ship,... 

...Upon a painted ocean".


With some apology to Coleridge.

Cold light of day in Carradale.

 The cold light of day slowly  stole across the grey rocks of Carradale Point.

 A hot brew slowly brought life back to our stiff limbs as we looked around...

...at where we had set up home in the dark of the previous night. There was just enough grass amongst the rocks to pitch our tents.

It was so cold we didn't waste time before getting on the water for the third day of our trip to Arran and Kintyre. Soon we had left the magnificent sands of Carradale Bay and the Kintyre peninsula behind us.

In the soup at Carnage Corner, Dunure.

Yesterday the Clyde forecast was for full sun and F3-4 W winds, which looked great for a blast from Maidens to Seafield.

When we arrived at Maidens, the Clyde didn't look very sunny, the wind was SW and my anemometer was averaging 28km/hr in the lee of Maidens harbour. Heavy squalls were blowing over the Arran mountains leaving dustings of snow on the high ridges.

The water was surprisingly unflat even while we were still in the shelter of the Maidens reefs. No sooner had we launched than Clyde coastguard issued a new gale warning. "Malin F8-9 imminent" and the inshore Clyde forecast had changed from "F3-4 W to F5-7 SW".

For some reason, I didn't take any photos at all on the incredible downwind blast across Culzean Bay and round Carnage Corner, off the headland at Dunure Point. My GPS showed that we were regularly hitting 17km/hr as we surfed down breaking waves. David had even put his spray deck on, which was just as well as several times waves broke over our decks and threatened to broach us. Fortunately, the sails are very good at keeping a kayak driving forward and resisting broaching.

Kayak sailing in these conditions can be quite exhausting at our age, so we decided to run into the shelter of Dunure, where it was a relief to get into the lee of the land. This view, towards Ailsa Craig, is looking back the way we had just come. As you can see there were some excellent kayak sailing conditions off Carnage Corner.

The Dunure Inn beckoned but it was some distance away as it was low tide. So first it was time for...

...first luncheon on the beach. David offer Phil some strawberries. At first Phil refused... "I'm still on my first course."

"Go on" said David, "treat it as an intercourse."

After first luncheon, we made our way up to the Dunure Inn for our second luncheon. The sea food bisque was delicious, there were bits of lobster floating about in my soup. It went terribly well with the Guinness. I've said it before, the Dunure Inn scores 12/10 as a sea kayaking pub.

A feeding frenzie and toasted footsies in Carradale Bay.

 As we left the harbour at Carradale, the Sun slowly sank behind...

 ...the hills of Kintyre leaving...

 ...a lovely pink afterglow...

 ...as we paddled towards the south end of Carradale Point.

Off the point, we saw an amazing display. Several porpoises had herded a shoal of fish near the surface of the sea and were feeding on them. Lots of noisy sea birds had joined in the feeding frenzy. I had never seen porpoises doing this before.

We rounded the south end of Carradale Point and turned to the north towards the wide strand of sand at its head. The campsite was still closed for winter so we were going to wild camp on the dunes behind the beach. However, lots of people were taking advantage of the unseasonal March weather and were enjoying the sunset on the beach. So...

...we found a little patch of grass on the headland that had been closely cropped by the feral goats. We soon had a fire going  under the light from the moon, Jupiter and Saturn. Across the bay, the lights of the the hamlet of Waterfoot twinkled as the fire sparked and toasted our footsies!

A congregation of thirsty seafarers at Carradale.

The day was drawing to a close as we continued down the Kintyre coast towards the fishing port of Carradale.

The Viktoria Viking was also heading in for the night. She was accompanied by the Sarah Ann a small landing craft that acts as the tender for the new fish farm north of Carradale.

Viktoria Viking is too large to enter Carradale harbour so she tied up at the lnew fish farm. Sarah Ann then ferried the crew into the harbour at Carradale.

 We had to slow our own approach to Carradale to let the trawler Avalon II (CN690)...

...enter the port in front of us. No doubt several seafarers would be making their way to the public bar at the Carradale Hotel. Sadly we would not be joining them. We still had to find somewhere to camp and it would soon be dark...

"Let them drink beauty rather than ale" quote: Grogport Tourist Board.

It was now 5pm and we left Grogport quite unrefreshed due to its lack of a public house. However, as we drank in the beauty of the coastline to the south of the dry little town,...

 ....the Carradale Forest took ourbreath away. Coniferous forest clung to rocky headlands which, one after the other,...

...receded into the distance towards Carradale Point.

 After a while we came to a break in the rocks where we...

...stopped to take in a brief refreshment of our own.

Somewhat pissed off in Grogport.

The remote east coast of Kintyre, between Claonaig and Carradale, is almost unpopulated having only one hamlet and is...

 ...stunningly beautiful. Of course the views...

 ...over to Arran are also superb.

We paddled along a coast where the bare bones of the Earth lay exposed, then came to a series...

...of rocky channels near Eilean Sunadale. All this voyaging proved to be thirsty work and it was with some degree of anticipation that...

...we approached the promisingly named hamlet of Grogport. Now if you do a Google search for Grogport you will find that this is a hamlet bursting at the seams with facilities: "Estate agents in Grogport", "Banks in Grogport", "Businessess for sale in Grogport", "Budget hotels in Grogport", "Singles in Grogport", "Swingers in Grogport" etc etc...

One can only imagine our disappointment, not to mention thirst, when we discovered that this pseudoeponymous clachan had not even one, solitary bar.