Craighouse Bay Jura Scotland

We had an OCC Open House BBQ to attend on Sat 6 Aug so we decided to keep progressing gently up towards Craobh Haven and made an easy lunchtime start from Gigha on Wednesday 3 August.

Approaching Craighouse Bay with the Paps of Jura in and out of the cloud

The breeze was much less than the day before, only around 7 knots, but it was from the northwest so we had some civilised upwind sailing.  Again the scenery was lovely, albeit a bit greyer than the previous day with more cloud around, but when the sun broke through the hills just glowed!

Goat welcoming committee

At the entrance to Craighouse is a modern light structure, rather reminiscent of Marvin the Paranoid Android from the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.  As we got closer we saw that there was a goat sitting at its base. Not what we would have expected in Scotland but we subsequently saw a fair number of goats on our travels around the islands.

On a mooring in Craighouse Bay with the Jura distillery dominating the scene to our left

Craighouse Bay, like a lot of the anchorages in western Scotland, suffers from kelp which can make it difficult to get the anchor dug in and secure.  Consequently, the Jura Development Trust has laid a number of moorings in the bay and, with the gift of a 4G internet connection, you can pay the £12 per day charge by BACS transfer or you can pay the more traditional way, by cash, in the village shop, at the Jura Hotel or at the Antlers café. 

The Paps of Jura

From our mooring we had a great view of the village (including, importantly, of the distillery) and of the Paps of Jura.  But we were at the beginning of The Barkers’ West Scotland Malt Trail and so we pumped up the dinghy and high-tailed it ashore to recce the distillery.

Nothing is very far in Craighouse village but by the time we got ashore the shop, café and distillery had closed up for the day.  We took a good stroll around and then repaired to the surprisingly busy Jura Hotel for a local beer.  The bartender told us that the Jura Brewery had not yet formally set up on the island but was awaiting planning permission to build.  Meanwhile, the company is based on the mainland just across the Sound of Jura.

View across Craighouse Bay towards Jura…..

…..and towards the mainland (and BV!)

We drank our beers, enjoyed the fab views from the hotel and plotted for the next day.

One of the other visiting yachts on a Jura Development Trust mooring with a view of the Mariners’ Cottages
 behind.  According to a tourist signboard, at one time (the end of the 19th century or the beginning of the
20th century, we can't remember which) there were 10 Master Mariners living in these cottages

Thursday 4 August dawned bright and generally sunny and it was time for another run ashore.

Seafood shed

We’d been told that fresh seafood was available at the village shop but this is no longer the case.  However, the shop does sell excellent, locally produced sourdough bread, so we bought a loaf and were directed across the road to a shed for our seafood.  The shed was firmly closed so Nicky rang the number on the door.  The call went through to answerphone but the fisherman rang back a few minutes later.  Unfortunately, he was ill and unable to go fishing and so had nothing to sell.  Maybe next time…..

Back to the Jura Distillery – open this time!

We headed to the distillery.  When we arrived the visitors’ centre was already quite full with a party of about 20 visitors from a mini cruise boat that had arrived in the bay late the previous evening, but there was space for us to join and listen to the explanations.

Renovations – the old stills waiting to be scrapped

It turned out that only the visitors’ centre was open as the distillery was undergoing major renovation work, hugely held up by Covid and its subsequent ramifications.  Outside the building were the tops of 3 stills, awaiting disposal.  The stills had been replaced in toto and there was clearly significant other work going on, not least a full redecoration.

Jura Distillery tasting room

We tasted a couple of the whiskies on offer and marvelled at the wide selection and high price of some.  £300 for a bottle anyone?  [Ed: despite everything apparently many of the higher priced whiskies have a good market]  Having purchased one of the more reasonably priced whiskies, one we had tried, we made our way to the newest distillery in Craighouse, Deer Island Rum Distillery.

Deer Island Rum Distillery

We’d not known about the rum distillery before our walk around Craighouse the previous evening and afterwards in the Jura Hotel bar we had also found out about Jura’s Lussa Bay Gin, another island spirits company start-up.  Like the Jura Brewery (and probably Lussa Bay Gin), Deer Island Rum does not yet produce alcohol on Jura.  Instead the distilled alcohol is imported from mainland Scotland and the spices are added and the liquor aged in barrels in the warehouse we visited.  The company hasn’t been going too long but the rum is excellent, very spiced and perfect to drink neat on ice or with a splash of soda water.  We were able to taste a sample, both neat and with their preferred mixer, a grapefruit tonic.  We were also given a taster of their coffee liqueur and a sample of the rum-soaked raisins which are a by-product of the spicing process.  All were excellent, but the rum was the winner by a country mile.

Sunny views along the shore of the bay and of the beach enclosed by the pier

Traditional rowing boats

Local fishing boats

As we wandered back to the dinghy the sun came out, lighting up the scenery yet again, so we took full advantage and snapped more photos.

Two distilleries before 11am…. what’s not to like!

Then it was back to BV to prepare for a ‘huge’ voyage, 15nm up the coast to Lussa Bay, close to the gin distillery and a convenient stop for the evening, well-positioned to take advantage of the next day’s tide north through the top of the Sound of Jura.  The question was, having visited 2 distilleries on Jura, did we need to ‘do’ the third?

Craighouse Bay, Jura, Scotland