Kerrera to Ardfern

Thursday afternoon

Generally it seems harder to forecast weather accurately in among the hills and islands of Western Scotland than in the flatness of East Anglia. Rain arrives when it is only supposed to have a 5% probability. Winds go from nothing to 20 knots and back in an hour. And the three main models that I have been using - GFS, ECMWF and the UK Met Office – rarely agree about anything, from wind direction to temperature. So when they all suddenly agree you can finally be pretty confident about what is going to happen, and unfortunately that is what the Met Office describes as an "unseasonably low" depression scooting past the west coasts of Ireland and Scotland, bringing strong winds from early on Thursday morning to early on Saturday morning. Or, if you believe the Met Office, every day for the foreseeable future.

So we have currently abandoned all plans to go to Islay or Jura, or even the memorably named but almost un-spellable anchorage of Puilladobhrain, and instead retreated to the safest spot I could think of, which is Ardfern Yacht Centre, far, far up Loch Craignish and sheltered from pretty much every direction. Fortunately I contacted them as soon as the forecasts got consistent and booked three nights, because by the time we arrived at Wednesday lunchtime they were already turning people away, and a number of yachts are anchored outside in the loch.

Also fortunately I browsed through my new and tragically under-used pilot book for the area and read about Dorus Mor, which is a tidal race just at the entrance to the Loch. These are not the gentle tides of the Sound of Mull; we are only a few miles from the notorious Corryvreckan and these are seriously speedy flows. Anyway we got the timing right and left Kerrera around 0830 on Wednesday 26th, with very light northerly winds and a grey sky, which fairly soon became stronger southerly and south-easterly gusts (on the nose, of course). The push not offered by the wind was more than made up for by the tide, however. In the narrow channel between Luing to the east and Lunga and Scarba to the west we were travelling at one point at more than 11 knots (12.6mph) of which at least six knots was just tide. And in the very sheltered waters the sea was very swirly but more or less flat.

So here we are for now. Ardfern has a very good village shop, a pub and an excellent cafe, but not much else. Also I have edited an article about it in Cruising which gives me a small amount of extra knowledge. Fortunately I have some work to do on the CA Newsletter, so the timing is good for me, but it would be nice to explore a bit more of the surrounding countryside and see birds which are not in danger of being blown away. 

Looking towards Corryvreckan

Ardfern looking lovely

Brunch at Lucy’s cafe