Fogwell's in Scotland

The Fogwell and Ruxton Sailing Trip

Everything about our sailing trip was fun, even the rain. We went with great friends - (big) Graham and Joey. They have two girls: Beata, who is 10, and Alina, who just turned 8 (she is a good size for 8 years old). That made for eight sailors, but only two had any real sailing experience - Graham and Joey! My family prepared by practing four different knots and by learning the names of the different parts of the boat.

The boat was beautiful. It was a 41 foot sloop called the Hullabaloo. It had two bathrooms with hot water showers, 4 bedrooms, a refridgerator, stove, sink, central heating, a built in CD player with seperate speakers for the deck, a navigation table with all possible navigation equipment, and a decently roomy dining room and table. On wet rainy days, it was warm and comfortable below deck.

The actual sailing is much less stressful than I thought. You basically set the course and the sails and then just monitor the situation. Even going up wind, you have a long time between tacks. The sails do have a lot of power and you need to be careful around the wenches. It is nice and quiet going with a soft, easy wind. There's no drone of an engine and the stereo sounds great. It's much more stressful motoring up to a crowded dock. There, you have to have your lines and fenders ready, and there is little room for error. Sailing can get more intense with a stronger wind. Our best sailing speed was 8.5 knots.

Scotland was also beautiful, as you will see from the pictures. It is beautiful in the sun and in the rain. I had a bit of trouble understanding people. They really mumble when they talk and they say typical things in a different way, but everyone we met was really nice.

We saw a whale! We were sailing and I was at the helm. It was rainy and lonely on the water. We had seen a number of porpoises (or dolphins) over the last few days, so we were always keeping an eye out for something. Suddenly, a huge beast broke water 100 or so yards off the starboard bow. Everyone was called on deck and the whale surfaced a couple more times before swimming out of range. No chance for the camera, but it was a pretty nice bonus for a rainy day.

We ate great food on the trip too. A friend of Graham's family made us a giant dumpling, which turned out to be a large spherical sweet bread with rasins. We ate on that thing for days. Joey, who lives in Germany now, went nuts in the store. She rediscovered all of her old favorite English products. She had us sampling all sorts of things - ginger bread and other sweet breads, all sorts of candy, the 'original' chips (they call them crisps) that you salt yourself, cheeses, English bacon, etc. We ate out for half of our meals and we made the other half ourselves on the boat.

I tried everything when we ate out. I had "haggis with tatties and neeps". Tatties are mashed potatoes with shredded cabbage. The potatoes were unusually good. Neeps are mashed parsnips and butter - also very good. Haggis, if you don't know, is ground up liver and kidney, mixed with oatmeal. I had it done right in a restaurant which means that it was properly boiled in the stomach lining of a sheep. It is really good. Tastes like livery meatloaf. We also bought fresh kippers (fish) and baked then for breakfast! You'll see the pictures of the classic fish and chips too...

Enough talk - lets get to the pictures! I annotated them in order, so I'd recommend viewing them left to right and top down. I also included a To Pictures link at the top of this page, so you can go from picture back to thumbnails quicker. Enjoy!

Ship's Log (Hullabalo)

Thursday - August 9
Arrived in Ardrossan. We were picked up at the airport by Graham's mum and her friend, Margaret (big Graham's mum, of course, since little Graham's mom was arriving at the airport and certainly cannot drive on the left side of the road!!). We got to the boat and were thrilled with it. Joey and LA did a MAJOR shopping store visit and overdid it a bit, but it all fit. Margaret had to leave after dropping us off and then Mamie arrived to go to dinner with us. Pam (Graham's mum) had her 2 grandkids visiting from the states (Graham's sister's kids) and we all went to a nice dinner. They dropped us off to a nice evening at the harbor. We had a great night's sleep on the boat.

Friday - August 10
Awoke to sun but no wind. We motored off Millport from Ardrossan Wind picked up to about 2 We sailed towards Rothsey, up to the Narrows. motored through the Narrows and passed Point Island. We moored in Caladh Bay. It was a beautiful evening in a nice isolated bay. Just what you would imagine for a sailing holiday. We had a great dinner and relaxed as the sun went down. The kids rowed around the bay in the dingy. Awoke to heavy cloud, mist and rain. Big Graham took a nice refreshing 'swim' that morning - ask him about it sometime.

Saturday - August 11
Motored to Tighnabruaich. Wind at about 2-3, sailed around Ardiamont Point to Tarbet. We saw some dolphins on the way. Stayed in Tarbet harbor. Here was the first fish and chips, haggis and kipper for the Fogwells, The people in Tarbet were SO friendly. The first guy we met had sailed on Scepter (the boat that Graham's late dad helped crew) and knew of Graham's dad. The kids went ashore and jumped on a trampoline for a bit while Joey and LA shopped. We got enough for the next night's meal.

Sunday - August 12
Constant rain. 15 degrees. Wind at 2-3, sailed to Ardrishaig. Saw the Crinnan sea locks, we've been told it takes about 6 hours at best to go through all the locks. The first one is automatic. All the rest must be operated by hand. We watched a boat go through the first one and then went to the second one and helped operate it for a German boat from Kiel. We then sailed to Stonefield Castle Bay. The boys went up for a reconnaissance trip and after dinner we all rowed ashore for a drink - don't try Bowmore!!

Monday - August 13
Miserable weather. Saw seals in bay before leaving. Clouds touching water and no wind. Motored 6 hours to Rothsey. Saw a whale on the way (that was our reward for such miserable weather) and lots of dolphins. Wind picked up in the afternoon and we sailed for a while then. We stayed in Rothsey for the night (got to use the Victorian toilets that Prince Charles has used). We had a nice dinner in town. The kids played a little golf the next morning (an American in Scotland HAS to play a little golf!!). Rocked to sleep by the ferry arriving (this was really heavy rocking).

Tuesday - August 14
Motored out of Rothsey, pretty rotten weather, rain and no wind. Even big Graham got fed up with the weather and started to take a nap. That was all it took for the wind to pick up to 4. It was still raining down cats and dogs, but we did some great sailing. We were going about 8 knots and the kids were LOVING the tilts. We had planned to moor at South Cambrey Island but due to wind direction, we sailed over North Cambrey to Largs. We arrived in Largs totally soaked. Had a great meal on board and the Bunnahabhain was finished.

Wednesday - August 15
The weather was finally nice but no wind - just goes to prove that you can't have everything. We headed for Millport, moored there and went in to shore on the dingy. Highlight was an adorable seal that followed (close enough to scare some of the girls) the dingy into shore. We rented bikes for all (only one tandem in the bunch - it was a group of individualists!!). We cycled around the whole island, stopping on the way to visit a small aquarium. We went back to the boat and had a nice dinner on route to Ardrossan tasting all the wonderful cheeses that Joey purchased in Rothsey. If anyone reading this has 6 million pounds, there is an island for sale in Scotland where they make the BEST cheese!!. Anyway, back to reality, we made it back to Ardrossan, our home port. While motoring in we saw a bunch of people fishing from a pier. We looked up and over their heads was a hugh 'No Fishing' sign, it was quite humorous. Back in Ardrossan we had a beautiful sunset and sat sadly on the deck realizing this was the end of a great adventure.

Thursday - August 16
We awoke to a flurry of activity of packing and cleaning. We filled up with diesel and lost one styrofoam life preserver. Graham's mum had arrived with her two wonderful friends and her two grandkids to tote us to the airport. We turned the boat in on time and got the Ruxton's to the airport with a couple of minutes to spare to head back to Germany. The Fogwell's spent the day with Graham's mum and Margaret and then back to the airport for the flight back to Belgium.