I hate fibromyalgia. But instead of moaning about feeling bad, I am going to tell you about what I did on my holidays. I had two holidays, this year, both of which were full of lots of fun, excitement, amazing experiences, and they were both very ship-oriented. Since I was old enough to read about tall ships, I've always wanted to go to sea. I learned to sail dinghies when I was about 9, and I've sailed yachts - I've even participated in accidentally pirating a yacht! But despite dreaming about going to sea on a tall ship, and reading everything about them that I could get my hands on, I never had the opportunity. When I was 16, the Tall Ships Race left from Leith, and I went to see the ships with my family. The point of the Race is that a certain proportion of the crews are between the ages of 15 and 25. They have to have a certain number of teenagers on board. I was old enough to go, and many of the ships were wanting crew - but my parents felt that though I was old enough, I was still a bit too young to go. I swore to myself I'd do it before I reached 21, but money was the issue, and there was a boy - a very, very bad influence - and then I went to university, and before I knew it, I was 21. I've sworn now that I'm going before I'm 35 - and with more intent to actually do something about it.
Anyway, we'd planned a week's holiday in Shetland - where my family is from - as the Tall Ships race was leaving from Lerwick on the last leg of the race to Norway. Shortly after this was arranged, we discovered that Royalist, the sea cadet training vessel, was also participating in the race, but only as far as Greenock. P sailed on Royalist several times when he was young, while I'd only seen photos of her, and once - from afar - her masts, when she was in Gosport for fitting out and we were in Portsmouth. It wasn't hard to decide to go through to Greenock to visit the Tall Ships there, as he was keen to see her again, and I was keen to see her properly for the first time. We decided to stay in Dunoon, because it was more scenic, cheaper, and allowed us to explore the area.
On the ferry across to Dunoon, we spotted several tall ships motoring up the Clyde. One of them looked suspiciously familiar. As she came closer, it seemed as though she had gunports, for cannon. Royalist has gunports; we were suspicious. As we watched, we became almost convinced that it was Royalist. Closer still, and there was no doubt about it. We grinned at each other in glee. What perfect timing, and a brilliant start to the holiday! That was just the first of several incidents of perfect timing over the course of the weekend.
Once off the ferry, we headed along the promenade to our B&B, which was right on the shore. Our room was really big, and looked out across the bay; we were up in the attic, with a dormer window giving a view both up and down the Clyde. Anyway, after dropping our bags, we headed back out to explore the town. Behind the hills on the other side of the river, the clouds were turning a menacing blue-grey. As we turned into the Tourist Office, a jagged fork of purple lightning made me jump (and yell with glee; I like thunderstorms). Once again, excellent timing. We wandered along the high street looking at the shops, while the clouds drifted in our direction (while I secretly hoped for more thunder).
We headed back towards the Castle House museum, which was actually built as a family home originally, and had a spectacular view over both beaches and across the Clyde. We were climbing the hill just as the rain began, though sadly, there was no thunder. We investigated the museum, which had information about Iron Age roundhouses found in the area, as well as examples of the way the house would have looked in the Victorian period when it was lived in. Once the rain was over, we headed out to take photographs from the top of the hill.
This was taken next to the flagpole. You can see the shower of rain which passed us by, heading down the Clyde.
I liked the yacht moored below us, and watched a man pottering about on deck for a while. We saw the yacht again later in the week further up the river. That chimney in the distance is the powerstation. Beyond, you can see Arran, and right out to sea:
I made a quick video of the panorama (using consecutive photos).
We lurked up here for a while watching the river traffic, of which there was quite a lot.
We saw tall ships and and other vessels making their way to Greenock. We later saw her at the Festival; close to, she was rather lovely.
Not all the traffic was leisure or festival traffic; A minesweeper heading down the Clyde.
Two of the ships heading up the river to Greenock. We later saw them both at the Festival; close to, they were both lovely - though there's no comparison to seeing them with their sails set.
Leaving the Museum, we headed back to the guest house to have a rest before heading back out to find some dinner. I took the opportunity to curl up on the windowseat, which was perfectly Jehane-sized. (Ahem, it was really an inordinately large worktop area around the sink. The worktop took up the whole width of the dormer window, and was a good two or three feet in depth. It very clearly should have been a windowseat, though, so I put it to its true purpose.)
After having suitably recovered (and maybe snoozed a bit) we headed back out to find some food. While walking along the high street scrutinizing pubs, we came across this lovely old sign on a communal gateway to the tenement above - in its original position. A very modern combination lock looked rather incongruous next to it, as did the "Pirate Watering Hole" complete with skull and crossbones next door.
Dunoon is unfortunately not as prosperous now as it once was. It can be seen everywhere on the peninsula and in the town, from abandoned cottages to beautiful stained-glass windows like this one, boarded over.
A mysterious gateway up to the house perched on the hill above.
We made our way up the hill, following our noses. There was an alluring scent of food drifting from somewhere. At the top of the hill, we followed a street round in a circle, which led us to a square with some of the oldest buildings we'd seen so far, and the town's church. We explored the graveyard; it had a lovely view of the old Victorian pier.
A photo of the church itself.
The level of the graveyard had evidently risen over time (graveyards and rubbish dumps both have a tendency to do this quite dramatically). These stones were now well buried in the slope - they weren't just broken bits of stone propped against the wall.
An example: Not broken off, just getting slowly buried by the slope.
Heading off to hunt down the origin of the nice food smell - which had been joined by the scent of barbeque, leaving us feeling even more ravenous - we passed this Dunoon version of the Weeping Angel sort of sculpture, which has taken on a whole new menacing side courtesy of a certain series. I was intrigued by the expression on the face of this carving.
Close up of the statue. I thought she had a very pensive expression.
We took our leave of the sculpture and headed for food. One of the old buildings in the square had been renovated recently. It turned out to be a rather nice pub and restaurant, and was the origin of the nice smell that had wafted down to us earlier.
We both ate very well, although the meal was rather anti social; we both had new phones, and the pub had wireless. Of course we spent the time checking our email and twitter. The pub's wifi password was rather amusing: "You have to buy a drink".
Afterwards, we wandered slowly back along the promenade towards the guesthouse.
Looking up towards Gourock and Greenock. The clouds were being rather impressive.
The clouds were turning pink, making me think of the old ryhme; "Red at night, sailor's delight. Red in the morning, sailor's warning."
We watched the ferry leaving for Gourock.
Looking across toward the victorian pier, old ferry terminal, and new ferry terminal.
As it got darker, Cloch lighthouse came on.
One last yacht was slipping quietly up the river. The ferry was fast gaining on her.
Meanwhile, in the other direction, the Gourock ferry was just arriving.
The clouds turned pinker as the sun disappeared below the horizon.
The wake from the ferry began to reach us, breaking the stillness of the water.
The two lines of waves could be seen crossing the bay in a long line.
As they passed us end on (due to the shape of the bay) we were treated to a perfect cross section of a series of waves.
The sun shone out briefly from behind the hill, as the ripples from the ferry's wake distorted the reflection.
The next morning, we were up bright and early to get the ferry to Gourock, on our way to the Tall Ships Festival at Greenock. While waiting for the ferry, we had tmie to pick up a coffee from a little coffee place opposite the pier.
Opposite the coffee shop; we saw this sign in early photos of Dunoon in the museum the previous day.
We'd waited a while for the ferry, and quite a queue had built up. We heard someone say that the ferry should have arrived already, though there was nothing in sight.
But looking in the other direction, there was a black and white dot on the horizon, all the way down river. As the light caught the sail, I realised it was a fair-sized yacht heading up the river, probably to go to Greenock. I hurriedly swapped lenses on my camera, and zoomed in.
The first sloop was motoring up the river, but the one behind it still had enough wind to sail.
While I waited for the sloops to draw nearer, I pointed my camera down towards Toward Point, which was down near the end of the peninsula. Although I thought that's what I was looking at - it wasn't. This is in fact just a bend in the coast with a small settlement; Toward point is round the corner - as we found out when we ended up walking there on our final day. This is probably Innellan.
A channel marker and lighthouse south of us. Once we got home, I noticed some odd shapes in some of Paul's pictures of the lighthouse (which were more zoomed in than mine). Zooming in on the photo, we realised that several seals were lounging on the rocks, and lurking in the water around the lighthouse.
The cliff on the left looked rather familiar from our other sojourns on the west coast; this is actually the cliff on the west side of Wee Cumbrae. This is miles downriver from Dunoon - we were really surprised that we could actually see it.
This is closer to what we were seeing with the naked eye; the sail makes the sloop really stand out.
Another of the sloop. Around this time, the ferry finally arrived; it turned out there had been some sort of fuel problem across on the other side of the river. We hopped on board, going up onto the top deck to continue taking photos.
As we watched, they tacked, to head across to our side of the river, since they were sailing up into the wind. As they went about, their sails seemed to disappear.
...and at this point, with us on board the ferry to Gourock, on our way to the Tall Ships Festival, I shall end this post on what is definitely not a cliff-hanger, despite the excitement and anticipation I was feeling; at last, I'd get to see Royalist up close! If I couldn't yet go sailing on a tall ship, I could at least enjoy the experience vicariously through others.
But now it is late, and I should go to bed before I fall asleep at my desk.
