Cloudless Skies

Still unbelievably warm, passing Greenwich you can see the clear blue sky.

New Building

Unless you have been in London recently you may not recognise this new skyscraper. That is HMS Belfast in the foreground.

Not another sunrise!

Well yes, but this was taken at Tilbury on the River Thames this
morning. Not the most scenic of places, well actually probably one of
the most un-scenic of places, but in the early morning with the sun
coming up as a big ball of flame and the mist on the river it was
pretty good.
We have a great day, carried 600 odd folk up and down to the centre of
London and now we are on our way back up there on a Show Boat. Jazz
band on board bashing it out.
Tremendously warm day, up to about 28C and in the engine room 41C.
Engineers are all looking quite thin.

Drinking in the culture

Like getting off a flight to the tropics alighting at Euston Station. 27C in the shade here, fortunately I have found some cooling refreshment. They expect Scotsmen to turn up on the ship with a good drink in them, cultural stereotype.

London bound

At the moment I'm on a comfortable train heading South for London.  Later in the day I'm going to be joining the Waverley to do a few days steaming up and down the Thames, hopefully in the glorious weather that is here today.  I'm sure that there will be the odd anecdote or picture to post while I'm on board, please keep coming back for updates and maybe even leave a comment!

Latest visitor

The Norwegian passenger ship Fram has anchored in the Bay and is sending her crew ashore in fast craft. Interesting ship.  It looks like she has been ice strengthened and probably has been in ice recently judging by the lack of paint around the bow on the waterline.

There may be troubles ahead.

A glorious start to the day but these red skies in the morning usually predict a bad day ahead, Shepherds and Sailors taking warning etc.  And today would appear to have gone downhill quite quickly with rain and wind already and a gale forecast for during the day.  The good news is that London is forecast to experience a spell of unseasonably warm weather, and that is where I'm off to on Thursday to join the Waverley.  Long may it last.

25% Poorer

Apologies to Matthew Parris in the Times but as it paywalled I have pasted his column from today. I believe that this sums up the situation we now find ourselves in, in terms that I can understand anyway.

Hard times: prepare to be 25 per cent poorer

We in the overindulgent, overspent West are living beyond our means. We must live less well or work harder

This spiralling downturn, we are told, is a failure of capitalism. Financial systems have seized up. Liberal market economics isn't working. Someone should have intervened — there should have been regulations, mechanisms, emergency bail-outs — to stop this, and keep us getting richer. Now we must find ways to kick-start growth, recoup the losses we've sustained, and smooth away our debts. Adam Smith's Invisible Hand has let us down.

Rubbish. Adam Smith's Invisible Hand is slapping us about, as we deserve and need. We are in denial. Since 2008, and for the rest of some of our lives, what we have seen and will see is a gigantic market correction. Brutally because belatedly, the market is bringing us crashing back to earth.

We had tried to buck the market and for more than a decade seemed to get away with it. We meant to get richer without working harder. We tried to grow our economies without increasing our productivity. We wanted to grow our health, our welfare and our pension provision at a rate our taxes and our businesses could not sustain. We gave citizens and employees rights without asking how they would be provided for. We in the old Western democracies have been living in cloud-cuckoo-land, and now that we are hurtling towards terra firma we cry foul and demand to know what went wrong.

We went wrong, and the market is telling us so. The market is working. The shock is healthy, overdue, and right.

Yet we find ourselves this autumn in an atmosphere of anger and recrimination. The cry goes up that someone — probably some bankers — made a big mistake, and we must put it right. A huge unstated assumption underlies this caterwauling for a remedy: that the problem is remediable without all of us getting quite a lot poorer.

The problem, it is assumed, has arisen from a glitch in the mechanism of the market — like a blocked petrol pump in a car's engine. The car has stopped. Simple, then: the blockage must be removed so the car can power us on. Bonnet up, we examine the workings; expert economic heads are scratched. But nobody asks where the fuel is coming from. The problem, we assume, is a process problem. So repair the process.

Process, process, process. How this oh-so-millennial fixation has sickened me these past 15 years. It is pure Freudian displacement activity. We keep telling ourselves how we need to have urgent "nationwide debates", great national "conversations", about the way we organise this or that.

And it's all a subliminally induced distraction from the hard questions we don't want to face: obsessing about how we count the votes in the ballot box, rather than talk about what the elected representative, once elected, ought to do. Fiddling with the knives and forks instead of asking where the next meal is coming from.

This autumn, one great evasion dominates all others. We attribute our economic woes to a malfunction in the market. Two principal causes have combined to produce this effect. They are (1) a public misapprehension about the theory of the market economy; and (2) profound embarrassment among politicians and economic commentators because they never saw this coming.

The misapprehension is the belief that free market economics guarantees growth. It doesn't. Most people realise (even if Gordon Brown didn't) that there will be booms and busts, hills and valleys; but they assume the overall trend must be up. Market economics guarantees no such thing. A nation can grow poorer, relatively or even absolutely, and stay poorer. Half the world — America and Europe, for instance — can fall behind permanently. There's nothing automatic about growth. If you're not keeping up with the competition, the free market will shrink your economy. This is not a failure of the market but a failure of your economy.

Politicians and commentators have an unconscious need to persuade themselves — and a conscious need to persuade their audience — that this crash was avoidable. After all, if it was unavoidable then they have some big questions to answer about why they never predicted it. I have found my colleague Anatole Kaletsky's argument that it was somehow all because the US authorities didn't bail out Lehman Brothers, frankly bizarre, as if Lehman was some kind of asteroid hitting our global economy from outer space. If the camel's back was so near breaking then the identity of the last straw seems secondary.

On seaside holidays in childhood my brother and I used to build sand walls against the encroaching tide, racing to shore up whichever section looked closest to being breached. In the end there was always a section that did fail — and it was always the case that it would have held if we had reinforced it better. But another would have failed in its place.

Distrust the temptation to ascribe the crash to a particular catastrophic event: the unlucky failure of a component somewhere in the capitalist machine. The machine has worked with a clumsy and destructive violence, but it has not failed. It roared ahead then ran suddenly out of juice. An engine, however, does not provide its own juice. We — you and I, our fellow countrymen — are the juice. It is upon our labours than a national economy is built. And we haven't been working hard enough; or not for the ever-improving lifestyle and retirement we've come to think our right. Travel beyond Britain, Europe and America and you will encounter a very different approach in the balance people make between what must come from them and what must come to them.

Travel Britain. At every level, too many are doing too little. Many do want work, or more work, but others don't, and they load on to our economy costs that drag down the rest. By what grotesque moral logic do those who won't stop eating become entitled to mobility scooters on the NHS? I mention this trivial idiocy only because it's indicative: something has gone seriously wrong with our idea of entitlement. Greece is simply rather farther down the road.

We in the West cannot continue living like this without overencumbering ourselves and our successors with debt until we topple forward on to our faces. All the rest, all the hocus-pocus about leverage, and sub-prime, and derivatives, and financial instruments, and PFIs and bonds and sovereign debt and bankers' bonuses, tangles into an intellect–baffling thicket, blurring our vision of the truth behind it: we are living, and borrowing, beyond our means. We must live less well, or work harder and longer, or both.

I've stopped deferring to professionals in the world of finance and economics, having found my own uneducated guesses no more deficient than theirs — so I'll venture this. Short of a rebalancing of individual input and output that I fear would be too cruel for any democracy to undertake, we in Europe and America must expect the market correction we'd rather call a market failure to persist, in fits and starts, until we are about 25 per cent poorer than we are today. Not until then will things begin to settle down. That is the message of the markets. Stop blaming the messenger.

Weather and audits.
Bit of a blow on here today, strong SW'ly blowing up from the Irish Sea causing a nasty swell around Lismore Light but we are continuing to run.  Having to lash down all the trucks and commercial vehicles just in case, naturally the crew are happy to help in this extra task.
Maybe in  preparation for our Safety Mangement Certificate audit next week, our Company Mangement auditors are on board to do an internal audit today.  Still as a small cog in the machinery of the ship this does not unduly affect my day to day activities.  Captain seems to be quite busy though.

Permanent Crew

I have just heard that my position with Caledonian MacBrayne is to be permanent, here on the Isle of Mull, trading twixt Craignure and Oban.  So doubles all round when I get home.

Sunday Activities.
Every two weeks or so we hold a man overboard drill which requires us to launch the ship's FRC (Fast Rescue Craft) to carry out an exercise in recovering a man in the water.  Today was very suitable with a gentle wind and little sea, well I guess it was suitable as long as we only have people over the side in good weather.  Anyway we launched the boat just after leaving Craignure and it zooms away at 27 knots to await our arrival in Oban.  Here's a picture of it being recovered once we were alongside.








We are now on the reduced timetable so our last trip of the day was the arrival in Oban in 18:00.  As it was so lovely I went for a walk up the hill to McCaigs Tower that overlooks the Bay.

How about a sunrise?

Autumn is here and we are seeing the sun rise in the morning as well
as setting in the evening. So for a change here is the sun coming up
over the mainland as seen from Craignure on the Isle of Mull this
morning.

On the West Coast

Dear readers, my apologies if you have visited the blog in the last few days to find that there has been no updates.  I am lead to believe that one of the vital requirements for a blog to have and keep its readership is to keep a steady news flow so that there are new items to read, otherwise why visit?

Truth is that little worthy of printing has occurred in the last few days, I joined the Isle of Mull on Wednesday and we have been plying the waters between Mull and Oban on a daily basis with little of note happening along the way.  Just like trains and buses our customers don't want anything exciting to happen.  Turn up on time, convey us comfortably and safely to the destination and arrive on time is as much as is expected and we are pleased to provide this.  Unfortunately unlike my previous employment with Waverley, where each day provided a new anecdote with thrills and spills along the way, the Isle of Mull tends to be pretty predictable.

So it may be a trifle dull on here, but the view from the office window is often spectacular and our customers are happy and so should I be.  At the end of the month I am joining Waverley on the Thames for about 10 days so no doubt I will then have ample material to write about.

Weather again

It was my plan to lift the boat out the water tomorrow, but unfortunately the old enemy has got in the way. For those of you who understand isobaric charts you will appreciate that this synoptic chart for Monday shows a deep depression centred to the NW of Scotland with its associated fronts and closely spaced isobars, which predict strong and gale force winds over our part of the country.  So no lift out tomorrow, or the day after and gallons of water to fall out the sky onto us.  The joy of a maritime temperate climate.

Heading North

We, that is SWMBO and me, are heading north to the Highland capital of Aviemore for a Ladies Business Conference. I shall be using the hotels leisure facilities while the ladies network. Maybe one of those hot rock things? Then a dinner tonight, now I think I know how Denis Thatcher felt.

Racing Results


Euroyachts have published the results from our little fun race on Saturday, to confirm our 5th place out of 15, 5 mins and 21 secs from the first place.  Results  for the full results.










Based on our 7th place last year and continuing at the same rate we should be winners in 2013.
Some more photos at Gallery

Euroyacht Fun Race

Well the good news is that a Jeanneau Sun Oddyssey 37 won the 2011 Fun Race, this is an annual bash from Largs to Colintraive held amongst the Jeanneau owners. I own a Sun Oddyssey 37 but it wasn't my boat that won it was another entrant. A windy old day with a F4 southerly when we started at Largs which gave us a great run up the Kyles till about Rothesay. During the sail across, one of the other entrants, in a go faster Sun Fast 35 with fancy sails, decided to try and overtake me on the inside and maybe even intimidate me by coming so close we could have handed over a cup of coffee to him.

He failed and dropped behind, then the wind swung round to the NW and we were hard to windward for the last stretch up to Colintraive.  It was all hands to the winches and sheets as it started to gust up to 30 knots with us still carrying full sail.

Happy Crew on hearing the race
result

Things all got a bit fraught about half way up the Kyle with the boats all crowding together in the narrow confines when a little bit of shouting could be heard above the sounds of winches and flapping sails.

The result, well on the day at the picnic ashore the SO 37 was declared the winner with Tarawa coming in at 5th spot in a field of 13, so not bad, though the crew didn't take it too well.  

There was some dark mumblings about the No 1 result as some felt that the winner may have been a little "confused" about the start time. I understand that some of the official photos are to be scrutinised which will have the time recorded to confirm all is above board.  Thank you to the crew, Julie and Dave and to Angus Scott for the beer and nibbles. 

Best not to anchor here.
The passenger ship departed the Bay with about 5 lengths of wire hanging of their anchor.  I think some of the local fishermen have found a cheap way to dispose of unwanted fishing gear.  Probably best to avoid anchoring anywhere around there in the future.

The arrival of the Passenger Ship Albatros in Oban Bay has caused some consternation amongst the Cal Mac Captains. It isn't really quite the most convenient spot for our ships to arrive and depart from the ferry terminal. We are having to ask him to swing out of the way each time we arrive and depart.
Big ship to come into the Bay at 177m long and over 20,000 GRT.

Not another sunset!

Well, yes but it could be a picture of the car deck with happy
passengers going about their travelling as we transport them to and
fro on this vital lifeline service, but the sun setting over Mull is
much more picturesque.
Where was all this weather when we went out to Barra in a Force 8?
Unfortunately we also managed to scoop up someones creel line that
night, as it is wrapped around the starboard stabiliser fin and
doesn't want to come off. It must have been then as that is the only
time we've had them out for months.

Stormy seas

Quite a change from our usual routine as yesterday afternoon we headed off west to Castlebay on the Island of Barra.  Rather than our usual forty minutes crossing to Mull it took us 5½ hours to reach the Outer Hebrides, a bit longer even than the  normal timetable as we managed to find a gale on the way, so it was a rough old crossing.  Unfortunately some of our passengers were a bit unwell and one or two of the regular crew, who are more used to the placid waters around Oban.  Once in Castlebay it was a quick 15 minutes alongside and we were off back out again bouncing around the Minch. 

We were taken off our usual run so that the Clansman, which has an open vehicle deck, could do the Coll and Tiree trips and carry the maximum amount of livestock to the sales yesterday.  Having an enclosed vehicle deck we are restricted in the number of animals that we can carry on here as the ventilation is not adequate.

Interesting to see Castlebay, some of you may have seen it featured in the TV programme an Island Parish, apparently it has had quite an effect on the tourist trade this year.

Raffle Prize winners

Emma & Kirsty

Way back in January 2009 we attended a charity dinner, as a raffle prize I put in a day sailing on a luxury yacht with champagne lunch, yes I know, second prize two days sailing etc. Kirsty the winner, didn't get into touch until earlier this year to claim her prize and yesterday we finally made it.

What a terrific day, more than enough wind and the sun shone on us all day. A quick anti-clockwise circumnavigation of the Cumbraes with a stop over at Millport for lunch.  Off back to work on Wednesday, so this was a great way to end my leave.

Edinburgh Festival visit

Off to drink in some of the culture of the East Coast. While walking around the streets we are handed flyers of the hundreds of shows that are running over the month. This is just a selection of those that we kept.
We went to a Best of the Fest preview and based on that went to see a completely different show with this amazing Australian duo.


Never thought that you could get that much emotion out of a puppet.
As it says not for Kids. Here's a link to a You tube
http://youtu.be/2UCuOZUENpM

Visit to Norway

Earlier in the month we flew across to see Keith, Kris and family in Risor.  Thank you to Ryanair for providing the on time flights and the opportunity to buy Duty Free, Car Hire, Scratch Cards, Hot snacks, Hotel Rooms etc. on the flight over.  If anyone does fly to Oslo (Torp) with Ryanair it is about 2 hours by bus south of Oslo proper.  The bus fare, being Norway, is about the same price as the flight.
Of course their two children Eva & Felix have grown up since we last saw them, Eva is in the business of replacing teeth and Felix is getting fed up of little old ladies stroking his hair.   See photos for the reason why.
It was great to see them all again, here are some photos Risor .  People over there are still coming to terms with the tragedy that occurred three weeks ago on the Island of Utoya.  It is still on the front pages of the newspapers with much speculation about reasons and possible collaborators.  There is considerable concern that Breivik may be killed in a revenge attack and that there is already a price on his head.  

Thanks to Keith and Kris for looking after us and picking us up at the airport.

The Dark Side of motoring

After 5 years the old Ford Focus had been giving me some cause for
concern so unfortunately it had to go. We were in a shop across the
road from a car dealers and nipped in to have a wee look. An hour
later and a test drive up the motorway I am now the proud owner of a
Skoda Yeti.
For those of a technical bent, it is the 2 wheel drive 2.0 litre turbo
diesel version and in Muscovado Brown.
All jokes about Skoda's on a postcard please.

Report from Risor

I am out East in Norway visiting my brother and family.  The rioting and financial woes of the UK seem a long way away from here, unfortunately I am heading back tomorrow. 

A walk around the Greenock Cut

Once we had done our morning chores, hand over Julie's office to the
landlord, buy my brother's birthday present, (see Keith we haven't
forgotten), buy a new car etc. We had a bit of time on our hands so
we arranged to meet the Chief Engineer from the Isle of Mull, Brian,
at Greenock and we went walking in the hills.
The first half of the walk is alongside the Cut which was designed to
bring water down from the resevoir Loch Thom down the hill, so it is
nice and gentle with a very gradual incline. Fantastic views all
around the Clyde Estuary and again a beautiful day, not too warm with
a gentle wee breeze.
The return is on a service road alongside the main reservoir and the
compensatory reservoirs which are like the overflows. About 7 miles
all round so we slept well last night.
Thanks to Brian for showing us around and buying us a pint at the
Point afterwards.

Sailing with the Margarets

Our two new found friends from the Lanzarote trip came along for a wee
circumnavigation of the Cumbraes on Wednesday. Cracking day, with
just enough wind to keep us going but not too much tipping!

Back from our voyages

We have been away for three days and strangely enough for Scotland experienced wall to wall sunshine with wind, sometimes maybe a little bit too much wind. But then yachtsmen are notoriously fickle and generally never happy with what is presented weather wise.  Julie and I sailed to the new marina at James Watt Dock in Greenock where we were offered a free trial berth for the night.  Good place, sheltered, easy access with all new pontoons and most facilities.  At the moment, as you can see from the photo, plenty of spare berths but I'm sure that it will be successful in due course.

On our way downriver we passed this large vessel alongside at Ocean Terminal, this was the second large passenger ship in two days.  We sailed on to Troon where David joined on the Sunday morning.  We then had a spirited sail across to Lamlash on Arran where we anchored for lunch before a speedy sail back to Largs in North Westerly 4.  Bit of tipping and wall to wall sunshine, a rare combination of sun and wind!  Over 80 miles for the weekend.

Greenock bound

After a gentle wee sail to the new Marina in James Watt Dock at Greenock we met up with Walter "charts" and had a good meal at The Point. Now to beat Julie at cards; just like on the ship no TV.

Heading North

Not a bad day so we are heading upriver to the new marina at James Watt Dock to stay overnight, should be there by late afternoon.  I rang to check and there is a bonus that berthing is free overnight!  I'll call my Greenock chums once we are in place to see if they can pay a visit.

Lousy day for some

On our return from Craignure I could hear the local lifeboat and the
Coastguard discussing a nautical casualty. It wasn't until we were in
Oban Bay that we could see very clearly the fishing boat Gleaner hard
aground on, colloquily know as, the Isle of Arran bank. Low water
isn't until 15:30 so he won't be going anywhere until this evening.
Apologies for the quality of the photo, the iPhone camera isn't up to much.
Post script.  The vessel was re-floated at 20:00 this evening and moved back alongside under its own steam.  Here's a link to the BBC news http://goo.gl/VKIY3

MS Athena

This Portugese cruise liner anchored off the entrance this morning and
her lifeboats are busy takng passengers to and fro from the North Pier
in Oban.
An old ship built in 1946 and somewhat notorious as under a previous
name the Stockholm she was in a collision with the SS Andrea Doria in
1956, which resulted in the later sinking with the loss of 46
passengers.
Does anyone know why they have added those sponsons down at the water level at the stern,
looks very odd. I assume something to do with stability but if anyone
knows for certain it would be interesting to find out

Oh crap!

Cal Mac regret that due to a truck getting stuck across the forward
entrance off the vehicle deck the Mull Service is running about 1 and
3/4 hours late tonight.
No one died, and there were only two people on board wanting the
train, so they are now on a taxi to Glasgow. And we are very sorry.
This low loader is coming back with a huge digger on the next run
tonight, hopefully a bit easier the next time.

Around the harbour this evening

There are a few of the Tall ships passing through the area at the
moment, a few are berthed at the North Pier and of course we have our
local fishing boats.

Apologies

To all the ladies and gentlemen that were being hassled on the PA to get to their cars on this afternoon's 16:00 run to Criagnure, our apologies. The man who was supposed to unlock the doors to the car deck, had a senior moment, and forgot to open them up.  We often have drivers that appear to be lost but not a whole ship full.  And before any of my readers point the finger, no it wasn't me and I promised Jimmy Dixon I wouldn't tell anyone who was responsible.

View from the cabin.

We have been treated to a number of fabulous sunsets in the last few evenings.  This was the view from my cabin last night when we were tied up at Craignure, if you look closely you will see the 10 trillion midges that were out and about at the same time, looking for a small blood donation.

MCA visit

We had a wee visit, i.e. one crossing over and back later in the day, from our colleagues in the Maritime Coastguard Agency.  I know the surveyors from my Waverley days, they work in the Gourock office and one is well known about the ports and harbours, his turban and grey beard are quite distinctive.
It was quite fun to watch and listen in to the Captain dragging out the paperwork and fielding the awkward questions.  As a humble deck officer I am merely a cog in the machine and not concerned, anymore, with such important matters.  Made me quite nostalgic for my previous work, do I miss it?  No, not a bit.
Incidentally, it was picked up that we were not making our daily Radio Log Book entries correctly, so a non-conformity has been issued and we shall have to take immediate steps to rectify this serious breach.  :-)

Weekend activities

Saturday's are always busy, every trip was full of cars mainly.  I believe that the majority of holidaymakers leave their hotels and holiday homes and change over on the Saturday hence the high numbers.  We were having to turn away people all the time as there just wasn't room on board for any more vehicles, for most that will have meant a two hour wait until the next time we are back but even then they can't be sure as the ship is fully booked every trip. It is only down to the skillful directions and planning of the ship's crew that we are able to cram in a few more cars than that theoretically possible.  ( he says modestly)

Today, Sunday is a real contrast with none of the sailings full, indeed loads of room sometimes, it's a pity that things can't be spread out over the weekend.  Anyway I like the Saturday's as they provide a bit of a challenge and the day flies by.

We had a wee treat today when the Classic Malts Cruise departed from Oban after doing a parade of sail around the Bay and then heading out to Tobermoray and their second distillery visit.  Of the 60 odd yachts involved I would say nearly half seem to be foreigners, mainly Scandinavian but several American and French.  There was the odd smaller British boat in there amongst the Malo's and Hallsberg Rassesy's.

Still settled weather here, fortunately we haven't been experiencing any of the fierce thunderstorms and flooding that has been hampering the golf and flooding the good folks of Edinburgh. Makes a change mind.

Rain and mist

Back on board today, all sober and keen. Rained all the way from Glasgow and got heavier the closer I got to Oban, as they say it keeps the dust down.  

Horror of horrors the satellite TV that we have beamed into our cabins isn't working properly!  What are we going to talk about if we don't have Eastenders or Coronation Street to watch and comment on?

Don't even have the radio over in Craignure, changeover to digital! I think they would be happy to get any kind of reception over there.

Fantastic weather

Not long back from six days away on Tarawa.  Didn't venture beyond the Clyde but why would you when the Kyles of Bute must be one of the most scenic sailing waters in the world.  Last night, Saturday, it was a tad congested with the Kames Hotel moorings all occupied as was the anchorage at Blackforeland Bay with four yachts in situ.  Normally we have it too ourselves.  The little south facing bay on Bute, opposite the Kames Hotel, was empty, so we spent a very quiet night there in 9m of depth a few metres off the beach and rocks.  Woke to the sound of gulls, oyster catchers and sheep all up and about at 5:30.  

Fantastic weather, but here in Scotland you can't have sunshine with a good breeze, well not very often, so quite a lot of motoring as well.  Back to the big boat on Wednesday.

Sailing with submarines

John, Lynne and I are just back from a few days sailing around the
Clyde, in glorious, well most of the time glorious, sunshine. As you
can see from the photo still having the drink problems with the crew.
Interesting new vessel servicing the Trident submarine, the Eva that
appears to be a personnel carrier. Not sure why there is such a large
bow but it goes at a fair old lick.