Ardminish Bay Gigha Scotland

Red Bay looking even greener in the sunshine as we prepared to set off again

We didn’t spend much time awake in Red Bay.  Having arrived after a night passage and since we were planning on moving on with the next tide, we basically just got our heads down for a few hours.

There was a good breeze blowing out of Red Bay as we set off again

Leaving Red Bay with Georgina steering BV

We left Red Bay revelling in champagne sailing conditions.  The sun was out and the hills glowed green with the sea a deep blue.  We had over 20 knots of wind across the deck so we dropped a couple of reefs in the main, unrolled most, but not all of the genoa and shot off out of the bay.

The Mull of Kintyre ahead

We should have learned from our arrival at Red Bay.  As we got further out of the bay the wind increasingly dropped off and we unrolled the genny and shook out first one and then the other reef until we had full sail set, but the sailing was still good with about 16 knots of wind from the west. 

Through the tidal gate and sailing north past the Mull of Kintyre

Having crossed the Traffic Separation Scheme and cleared the main run of the North Channel, tidal flow was less of an issue.  Passing the Mull of Kintyre we continued to revel in good downwind sailing conditions as well as enjoying the fabulous highland scenery.  However, by 1700 hrs the wind had dropped off to under 7 knots so we switched on the engine, only to have the wind return with a vengeance an hour later blasting us the final 12 nm or so into Ardminish Bay, Gigha with around 22 knots.

Anchored in Ardminish Bay

There are moorings in Ardminish Bay as well as space to anchor, though a lot of the southern end of the bay is very shoal.  We anchored close south of the moorings and as we settled down to enjoy our first evening in Scottish waters the wind began to drop again and we could see a seal, albeit some distance away, lounging on a rock.

Ardminish Bay

Ardminish Bay, Gigha, Scotland

Red Bay Northern Ireland

Approaching Red Bay

We hadn’t really planned to stop in Red Bay but we had known that we would need to stop somewhere along the Antrim coast as the tide was going to turn against us before we could complete our passage through North Channel to Gigha.  Red Bay was as far north as we could get and, in fact, as we made our approach past Garron Point (the southern headland of the bay’s entrance), the tide was already sluicing against us at 2knots.

Garron Point

After seemingly spending a lot of time in the same bit of sea, we made it through the entrance and the tide dropped off a bit, but not a huge amount.  The tide here flows a long way into the bay, curves around and comes out along the southern shore so we were fighting the tide in almost to the point at which we anchored.

Garron Point is high, dark and quite forbidding and indeed much of the land around the bay is high.  In the southwest corner there is an open valley, significantly greener than much of the surrounding land but southwesterly winds blow strongly from here…..as we found, despite there having been little wind at sea.

At anchor in Red Bay

We dropped anchor in the southwest corner, to the south of the fish farm and not so close inshore that we infringed on the no anchoring area, a marine protection zone for eelgrass.  Having taken a few pictures we got our heads down for a couple of hours.  The plan was to be up and en route again as soon as the tide turned again in our favour.

The Mull of Kintyre in the distance (R).  The gap between Northern Ireland and the Mull was our next
tidal gate to pass through

Red Bay, Northern Ireland