Scotland Highlands sailing

This is the first blog record of a 3-day sailing trip to places outside Ireland. Scotland - is a beautiful country with plenty of islands to discover with unpopulated green landscapes. Is it possible to cruise on a small boat throughout the whole year, as many of them are not open to the ocean winds and swell.

Glasgow city. The story began with an early Friday landing in the Glasgow Airport. We could discover the beauties of the city during the last day of the trip, when we walked around the city for half day before the evening flight back. It has some impressive graffiti with the meaning - look at these two.

Some Scottish words in a taxi. We started to feel inspired by Scotland from the first moments of the conversation in a taxi when we tried to recall the Scottish words. Our shared knowledge ended after a few of them: 'wee' = a bit, 'braw' = beautiful, 'laddie' - little fellow, 'lassie' - girl, 'loch' - lake

Largs Heaven Marina. When we arrived at the Largs Heaven Marina - we saw our beautiful boat 'Mistral' in the Largs Heaven Marina. Soon it became the most desirable boat to have for me as a skipper, as it was designed for a single-handed sailing.

I have a special emotional connection with the Largs marina - as it was the place where I got my skipper's licence and became attached to the sea. I believe Largs is the ideal marina because of the calm water with the bright sky which extends the long row of boats going beyond the waterline with its reflection.

Having dreams of a future life at the seaside I bought two books about how to sail cross-atlantic from the Scottish author (TODO: insert links), and how to spend 8-years being sea-gypsies if you sell your house and buy a second-hand boat and start the long trip.

We started our sea journey from Largs, aimed to reach Lochranza in 1 day, and Campbelltown on the second day, return back on the third.


Swimming in a cold water. It was a calm weather most of the time - boring for a sailor. So we tried to swim, although it looked more like a cold shower. Couple of other local sailing boats gave us a round of applause, when they've seen that happening.

Lochranza - Isle of Arran. We've got into a small sea loch and the village Lochranza (Isle of Arran) after spending a whole day sailing through the northern channel around the Isle of Bute. The most remarkable places of the bay - are the 16th century Castle and the Isle of Arran Distillery.

Marina specifics. It is the first marina with online donation possibility that I've ever seen before. Normally, sailing is a very conservative activity, that doesn't change significantly within centuries. One can see sometimes a courtesy envelope to pay for overnight stay, but normally he needs to wait for a harbour master. This time was different - we could arrive and depart at any time.

Living a slow life. As we made a landing - we started to explore the local hills and routes, which ended at the distillery house.

Distillery tasting. The distillery is quite new comparing to other Scottish whisky-making places, although there were many small stills across the island from the early 1800s

Disembarking on a random private island - while the skipper is watching over the boat. Sailing between the small islands along the shore we suddenly decide to explore one of them. Minutes later the boat is in the water and a small expedition, oars in hands, is on the way to the island. There we find traces of an old hedge, stunning views and one of the unofficial symbols of Scotland - a mighty thistle!