While at Craobh, we saw that we were going to have a one day weather window before more bad weather was on the way. After reviewing possible destinations that we could hole up in bad weather, we decided to head to the island of Islay (pronounced EYE-lah), about a 48-mile-trip south. MJ and I spent quite some time reviewing the tidal streams we could expect to see along the way (Scotland has some vicious currents that you must be aware of), and reviewing the approaches to, and layout of, the Port Ellen Harbour at the south end of Islay.
With the help of the planning, the actual trip went very smoothly – the water was flat almost the entire way, and there was little wind. What little wind there was came right on our nose. The currents mostly made up for this – we had 0.5 – 1.5 (and even up to 2) knots with us most of the way – even better than we predicted based on tidal current graphs and atlases. As is the case often for us – the wind picked up just in time for us to dock, which made things a bit difficult, but MJ landed us just fine. We then spent at least 30 minutes tying, adjusting, and retying our lines in preparation for overnight winds predicted to be up to 40 knots, with direction changes thrown in there just to make it more interesting.
Just as PredictWind predicted, the peak wind speed measured overnight on Hokukea at the dock was 42 knots, but everything held well. A close lightning strike made sure we were awake as morning approached. Wonderfully, we had a gorgeous, sunny and warm day to check out things on the island. First things first – we had to get cash from an ATM. The Port Ellen Harbour does not take credit cards, only cash. We dug into our £1 laundry coins to add to our one £20 note to pay for the first night, but we needed more. The ATM was broken the afternoon we arrived, and the only other one was in Bowmore, a 30-minute busride away. Fortunately, the local ATM was fixed in the morning, and we plussed-up our GBP cash reserves (who uses cash anymore?). That completed, I was also able to get a voucher from the Convenience Store to top-up our O2 SIM card pay-as-you-go (PAYG) plan. We had a very productive morning, so then MJ and I treated ourselves to a coffee drinks and toasties at Little Charlotte’s Cafe at the No. 1 Charlotte Street Hotel.
Now that we didn’t have to run to Bowmore to an ATM, we could do something fun. We had gone to several whisky tastings and distillery tours previously, but we had never been to a gin tasting or tour. We found that one of our favorite gins, The Botanist, is made here in Islay. It is actually made in the same distillery that makes an Islay whiskey, Bruichladdich (pronounced BRUCH lah dy), a whisky that I’ve been wanting to try. We made reservations for a gin tasting experience.
Willie (? Willy), our host, gave MJ and I a great tasting where we learned lots about the history of Bruichladdich distillery, how gin started being made there, and how they used mostly botanicals that were foraged close-by the distillery. Willie himself brought 7 botanicals used in the gin that he had just collected within a 100 m of the distillery, and told us about each. We got a brief tour of the distillery. We then tried 4 different versions of Botanist Gin: the ‘standard’ Botanist, Botanist ‘Hebridean Strength,’ cask-aged 6 months, and cask aged-3 years.
Wow, all very different. The Botanist was . . . the Botanist we knew and liked. But the Hebridean Strength version was absolutely amazing. We both were blown away. By far, it’s the best gin I’ve ever had. The 6-month cask aged was meh. The 3-year cask aged was good, but not gin and not whisky. MJ liked it more than I did. We asked about availability: the Hebridean Strength is only available at the Bruichladdich shop, and at Duty Free’s at airports and ferry terminals. We bought a bottle at the shop.
The best gin ever.
While waiting for our taxi ride back to the marina, we went to a small store in Bruichladdich town for coffee, and had a great chat with 5 local folks. Greatly enjoyed it. In the taxi, we saw more of this beautiful island, and had a nice chat with the driver. She even stopped the taxi and backed up a bit on the small road to explain to us a bit about harvesting peat (dried peat was previously a big source of heating fuel in the area).
Today (Tue) was chore and big cleaning day. After having multiple guests aboard this past 6 weeks, cleaning was put off. We’re so happy to finally get it done. Today the wind is REALLY blowing – all the boats in the harbor are bouncing around. I wasn”t even able to fill the water tanks, it was too dangerous. We had winds up to 39.4 knots (45 MPH).
While we really like Islay, we will have a one-day opportunity to move on tomorrow, otherwise we’ll have to stay for several more days. Reviewing our options, and consulting sources on tidal currents, we’ll be leaving tomorrow morning around 0715 to make our way further south to Northern Ireland, specifically, Ballycastle. We need to arrive there right around noon, to avoid some wicked-bad currents. Neither MJ nor I have been to Northern Ireland, and we’re looking forward to going. We’ll then use that as a step to Belfast. By moving eastward around the top of Northern Ireland, we also avoid some of the really bad currents at the Mull of Kintyre.
County Antrim, Northern Ireland.