Lagavulin - 25/26 June 2006 (day 36/37)

Yacht Gothik

At Anchor

Lagavulin

Islay

26 June 2006

Click here to see a map.

Logged distance: 33M

Chart distance: 36M

Time under way: 9h10m

Sunday 25 June 2006

As soon as the lock keeper arrived to begin their working day we started the engine and proceeded into the last lock of the canal. A few minutes later the gates opened and the sea beckoned. There was no wind to speak of but a light northerly had been forecast which could be useful to us on our run down to Jura (or Islay, we didn't know which island yet). The scenery out of the canal lock really was something else. Soft grassy and wooded slopes, islands all around, mountainous peaks on the horizon. Occasionally one of us would point out something but generally it made us fall silent. There was a real difference here to that of the Firth of Clyde - for one there was a distinct lack of commercial shipping and other boats.

Once out of Loch Crinan (with the engine on) we set a SSW'ly course down the sound of Jura. The water was glassy, crystal clear and deep blue. Jelly fish of many forms floated by. After a while a gentle breeze begun to lift the surface of the water into ripples, the breeze traveling in the same direction as us at the same speed as the boat. This meant there was no wind at all coming across the deck. For the first time since we'd been at sea (and the first time in Scotland) the sun actually felt hot. George was steering so there was nothing left to do but enjoy it.

The island of Jura was on our starboard side, as we got closer the most noticeable feature was the lack of human influence. Jura is a large island (it took five hours to sail the length of and was in view the whole day) but there were almost no houses - the 2001 census records only 188 souls living on the island.

For me this was a dividing line between now and the previous weeks of sailing. The journey began to take on another dimension. The lack of boats and other people had begun to sink in, the fine weather and solitude made things all the more peaceful. The clear waters and clean air all the more invigorating. The birds and the sea creatures all the more fascinating. Maybe we just won't return to Brightlingsea - maybe we will continue to somewhere else...

Gradually the wind began to overtake us - finally it was time for the spinnaker. Keith (and Ben) will tell you I've been bemoaning the fact that we've not had an opportunity to pop the spinnaker since the trip started. Now the conditions were ideal. I spent a good few minutes gallivanting about the deck, setting the spinnaker pole and getting the running rigging ready, before giving the word to Ben to hoist. Up she went, filled and blossomed before us. The air was so light that we could almost trim by hand and without winches. In light air one can get blasé about flying the spinnaker - they have a life of their own most of the time - but today, with no running sea to speak of, we could be blasé. Once set and trimmed it needed next to no attention for the next three and a half hours. We even joked about lighting the barbeque and cooking some fish but instead went back to sunbathing. The spinnaker was up for so long the sun moved round and we were cast into its shadow. In fact this was the only real trimming the spinnaker needed as we altered course by 20 degrees to remove the shade and keep the sun on deck. Talk about the life of O'Reily.

Picture taken after a 'quick' trim. This really is lazy cruising, the main sail was sheeted in fore and aft along the centre line - simply to save the effort of gybing the spinnaker pole. It saved, oh... maybe 20 seconds, but we didn't have to get off our bottoms and the sun shone on us once more.

The Isle of Jura. This picture is of the only real town on Jura; Craighouse - home of the Jura distillery.

From the sea I could only count 20 to 30 buildings (including the distillery). The mountains, the Paps of Jura, were impressive, not particularly high (785m) - when considered with the likes of those on Mull and Skye - but none the less beautiful. The rock is a metamorphic quartzite and in the light of the day shone bluey-grey with shades of purple. The soil is mostly peat and covered in heather and bracken.

We had originally planned to stop at Craighouse and visit the distillery but were enjoying the sunshine and sailing too much to stop. It was a small decision to continue sailing to Lagavulin and the visit the distillery there.

For what it's worth, here is a picture of the Ardbeg distillery on Islay. Will tell you more about Ardbeg tomorrow.

It was an 'interesting' approach to Lagavulin. The entrance into the little bay being somewhat narrow, very rocky and marked with a variety of home made devices and paint marks on the shore. We started to pull in about 15 minutes before what I'd calculated as the spring high tide. A bit close for comfort but the pilot book stated it was suitable for a draft of 2m (we being 1.7m) so with high tide now there should be plenty of room to find our way. It was with good reason then that my heart started pounding after crossing a sill into the bay with the depth sounder reading only 2.2m. Something was wrong - this was going to require some hasty checking of my calculations otherwise we could be stuck in the bay until the next spring high tide. Keith and Ben quickly picked up one of the two moorings while I grabbed the almanac. For those of you interested in the technicalities I'll try my best to explain, for those of you not it is safe to assume the problem was resolved and you can skip the next three paragraphs!

Reeds Nautical Almanac comes with a set of tide tables for calculating the predicted astronomical tide for each day of the year for a set of designated 'standard' ports. Thousands of other (secondary) ports are described in the almanac and to calculate tides for these one needs to look at the tide tables for a specified standard port and apply a series of adjustments. The adjustments to be applied are not usually constant - they differ according to whether it is high or low tide, whether spring or neap and also (more interestingly) what time of day the tide occurs. Therefore, to calculate the time of high tide for a secondary port one would perform the following steps; find the time in UTC of high tide for the standard port, look at the table of adjustments for the secondary port, find the column with a heading close to that of high water in the standard port, add (or subtract) the figure in the column to that of the actual time of standard port high water, if in summer add 1 hour to convert to BST.

To get a very fine calculation, i.e. for one where a column does not exist with a heading close to that of high water in the standard port, one can interpolate. These fine adjustments using interpolation (for the east coast at least) can almost always be ignored as they are so small. The table of adjustments often only results in adding or subtracting a few minutes or small fractions of an hour. For Lagavulin (Port Ellen, Islay) the adjustment column for high water occurring in Oban (standard port for Port Ellen) at 1900 meant subtracting 50 minutes to get high water at Port Ellen. High water Oban today was 1728 UTC, no adjustment column existed for 1728 so I simply used the column for 1900 and subtracted 50 minutes to arrive at HW Port Ellen of 1738 BST. However, the adjustment column for HW occurring in Oban at 1300 meant subtracting 5 hours and 30 minutes! I'd never encountered a differential like this before. Interpolating to come up with an adjustment for HW Oban 1728 suddenly became important. My new calculation gave HW Lagavulin at approximately (one can only approximate now) 1620 BST. The tide had been going down for an hour and fifteen minutes - panic over, at least we could (at the very least) leave one hour either side of high tide tomorrow and have the same depth of water.

The next thing to check were my calculations for the tidal height and range. These calculations are much easier. After adjustments, LWS (low water spring) in Lagavulin was 0.3m above chart datum whereas HWS was 0.9m - a very small range but also close to chart datum. The panic was now really over - the reduction in depth from this point on was going to be less than 60cm - meaning we could just about cross the sill at low tide.

We quickly got the barbeque fired up, Ben made some salad and cooked the fish. A good friend suggested trying the fish with horseradish - it went perfectly. A fine meal after a very fine day.

Monday 26 June 2006

As we were (literally) moored right outside the Lagavulin distillery a visit did not require us having to get up at the crack of dawn. As it happened it was not a late start, the morning being lovely with the sun shining. We motored ashore in the dingy and walked amongst the distillery buildings and found reception - the next tour would be at 11:30. Since it was only 10:30 we decided to go for a walk. Lagavulin, the village, had maybe 20 houses - all spread out, nestled amongst low lying trees and peaty moorland with a few sheep. Two churches in Lagavulin had been converted into homes (and very nice they were too). The rest of the houses were in various states of repair. Once out of the village that was it, nothing else but sea views and shallow slopes to higher ground.

We were the only three people on the tour - lucky for us. A pretty young lady took us around, at first talking over us in her well practiced 'tour' voice, obviously meant for larger groups. It was a trifle ridiculous to begin with but the formality was soon lost as we started to ask questions. The process was fascinating (at least to me who didn't know much about it), she let us sniff the fermenting vats, let us taste the fermented grain broth from a big jug, and then taste the raw distillate before it was casked. Afterwards we sat in big armchairs in a boardroom type lounge where she poured us each a large glass of the 14 year old to enjoy out our leisure. What a wonderful tour.

Next stop, 1 mile up the road, was Ardbeg. I won't say too much about Ardbeg - other than it was, well, crap. The whole place was geared up for tourists, very organised , very neat, restaurant/cafe - the shop was more like a sales room. I felt I was being sold a kitchen rather than being allowed to wander around sticking my nose in here and there. After tasting the Lagavulin the Adrbeg was strong, rough and unpalatable. All the staff could acclaim for it was the price it re-sold for on the internet. There were plenty of collectors, none discerning was all I could think. Harking back to Sanda Island, the 17 year old Adrbeg we tried - and gave good comment to - what was that all about? We questioned the (sales) staff and it seemed this was a whiskey produced before the Ardbeg distillery was (temporarily) closed down. Ardbeg subsequently re-opened under a new owner, was re-vamped, re-invented and re-marketed. My only recommendation for their whiskey now is don't bother.

The stills at Lagavulin.

The spirit receivers at Lagavulin. These were glass chambers, padlocked by the inland revenue, through which every drop of distilled alcohol passed. The distillate, or spirit, would be directed to one of two holding tanks; one to contain spirit ready for barreling, the other for spirit requiring further distilling - which tank it was directed to depended on the alcohol content.

Another spirit receiver; Keith sitting in one of the fine sampling chairs at Lagavulin.

Ben - after swimming! He was bravely (very bravely in fact) keeping a straight face - saying how nice the water was. Neither Keith nor I quite believed him, I'd been swimming at Skomer island some weeks before (a long way south) and it was breath robbingly cold. Needless to say he did not manage to convince Keith and I to jump in.