Friday 28 August Brodick to Troon 16 nm

Neither of us slept. The wind started to come from a unpredicted direction…. right into the bay. The slight rocking we had noticed earlier ( when the cormorants were still perched happily on the buoys) deteriorated into a full blown 25 knot northeasterly. The forecasting for this evening had been variable depending on the source and the usually reliable met Office as well as the inshore forecast, had only predicted light winds. The boat although attached to a robust mooring was bucking up and down, burying her bow into the waves every few seconds. I would liken it to the worst airline turbulence you can imagine for 8 hours. We lay there trying to at least rest, feeling dreadful that we had subjected our poor boat to this. Eventually dawn broke and we could at last get up and get going. Getting off the mooring wasn’t much fun! The waves were strong and even clipped on with safety lines, didn’t feel very safe! Inside I was secretly thinking oh my goodness I hope J doesn’t want the mainsail up as I was very unshore I’d be able to keep the boat pointing in the right direction, let alone not wanting him going up to the mast in that sea. Fortunately he was of the same opinion and as luck we have it …the one saving grace of where we were, was that we could sail straight to Troon across the Clyde estuary, hopefully without tacking. We put out half the headsail ( this is easy as it’s just on a roller and can be completely controlled from the cockpit). Even with little sail out, we were still able to do 6 knots which meant we made good time and arrived in Troon about 3 hours later at 10 am. Troon is my final destination so as we arrived , I had mixed feelings of relief, exhaustion sadness and elation. Troon harbour is lovely and we spent a lovely afternoon sorting stuff out. I did washing and tumble drying whilst J went to Morrison’s. I also had a snooze! Lovely without any banging and crashing! We had a visitor too! Paul who lives nearby came to look us up , as he had known Angelique , and sailed on her since she was born! It was great to share stories of her past, and her present since we became the lucky owners. We also met an amazing young man who is bidding to become the youngest person to sail around the UK solo, at the age of 15. How brave is that! And I was pretty proud of my efforts! 😳. After all the chores, we finally sat down as the sun dipped in the sky, with some smoked salmon and a bottle of fizz, to celebrate the safe conclusion of a truly memorable 7 weeks, having sailed 1091 miles in our little boat. Once the sun had gone down and the colours of my last Scottish sunset for a while had faded away, we went up to enjoy a wonderful meal at Scott’s restaurant overlooking the marina and indeed right over the Clyde.

What I learned today……………… don’t hook up to a mooring in Brodick…. unless the forecast is very very very settled!

Sue x