25th June 2016 – Day 37 – Bannatyne marina, Bute to Millport, Great Cumbrae Island

Snapped drive belt

The next morning Mark did his usual engine checks and 2 problems came to light. Firstly, the alternator belt had snapped, so he fitted the spare and secondly, most of the coolant fluid had leaked out onto the floor of the engine room, and straight into the bilges. He topped it up and we siphoned it into a container, but we also needed to know exactly how it leaked. One theory was the suspect coolant lid which we will try to replace once we find an appropriate shop, until then we will need to keep checking it.

Waverley

Once fixed, we left the marina and headed for the island of Great Cumbrae, passing the Waverley once again, on her way to Rothesay this time. 

We motored through the shipping lane – "it's OK" says Mark "big ships only sail on Monday to Friday 9-5.30pm" – yeh right! "So we’d be OK". 

Rothesay

The wind picked up so we set sails and sailed down between the islands of Bute and Great Cumbrae. We rounded the bottom end of the island, headed for Millport bay and found the visitor’s moorings negotiating our way around the rocks and parked up.

Great moorings with pick up buoys and great hefty chains. Always feels more secure on moorings, especially if you know the wind is going to pick up overnight.

Looking towards Largs marina

We got the dinghy set up and went ashore to find ourselves walking among holiday makers. It was like stepping ashore at Western-Super-Mare or Padstow with kids in ill-fitting wetsuits splashing around in the sea, trampoline parks and fish ‘n chip shops.  Quite alien to the world we had been used to the for last month.

We found the supermarket, bought some tea and ran straight back to the dinghy, unable to cope with the crowds.

Little Cumbrae Island

As the tide went out we realized we were quite close to the rocks and to another mooring buoy. We were assured by the size and condition of the mooring chain which was now up on deck and hooked around one of our cleats, strapped down so it wouldn’t jump off in the night.

The evening was blowy but the sea soon settled down once again and gave a good night’s sleep. All the seabirds visiting the nearby rocks, the ducks with their broods and the kids on the boat on the next mooring sailing and capsizing their tiny Topper Taz gave us lots of things to watch – who needs telly, eh!