Rothesay to Inverkip - Day 32, 33

Rothesay to Inverkip - Friday 3rd June 2011 - Day 32

A yacht persons visit to Rothesay is not complete without taking advantage of the Victorian loo's next to the inner harbour.  The splendid interior of a bygone era and for a mere £1.50 which includes towel you can pamper yourself in this wonderful building.  The attendent will give you a full historyof the place and even the BBC will be there next month filming a documentary to be shown if I remember correctly in October.
I felt like a new pin on leaving and could take on the world (well nearly) there was a small matter of getting out of the inner harbour. 

While in the inner harbour took advantage of recalibrating the echo-sounder as you could see the bottom and with a tape measure set the sounder to the depth of water below the keel. At 13.00 we left Rothesay and headed for Loch Striven and with little wind for the first time hoisted the cruising chute to see how it performed.  I was very impressed and had a delightful run for an hour before dropping it and heading in the direction we wanted to go.  We motored across the Clyde occasionally seeing harbour porpoises while Craig got to grips with passing ferries and buoy hopping which he likes getting very close to (a bit to close for the skipper). 

I called up Inverkip marina and John Whitelegg whom I had met last year for the Tallships gathering in Hartlepool.  He had arranged for Selene to be berthed next to his own wonderful 46 feet motor cruiser Norvonna and took our lines on arrival.  We were invited on board Norvanna for gin and tonics by John and his crew Alan in luxury prior to going ashore to the Chartroom restaurant within the marina.  The meal was excellent and after saying farewell and thank you to our hosts who had to drive back home to Stirling, Craig and I wandered off to find the train station and finished off a wonderful day in the Inverkip Hotel.


Inverkip - Saturday 4th June 2011 - Day 33

In the morning began the task of sorting out the genoa furling gear.  The tension was taken up by fitting the additional inner stay and backed up by attaching the spinnaker halyard to the pulpit as we detached the genoa stay.  The turnbuckle and split pin were replaced, bolt and nut bought from the chandlery was fitted and secured, the extra length in the forestay being taken up by the backstay.

At 13.00 we left the keys for Selene in the marina office,  Craig and myself got a taxi to the station for our journey to Newcastle for a well earned rest at home.