Portavadie - slightly odd

dylanwinter

dylanwinter

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www.keepturningleft.co.uk
What a place!

The facilities are fantastic, the bandwidth is excellent, the shelter is perfect.

All very welcome after bashing into a stiff southerly for four hours coming down Loch Fyne. No pleasure to be had in that 12 miles or so. One of those days that makes you question why you ever became a sailor.

The location of Portavadie and all this investment is interesting

http://www.secretscotland.org.uk/index.php/Secrets/Portavadie

the amazing thing is that, if this place is not to your taste just on the opposite side of the Loch is Tarbert - an entirely different kettle of fish. I shall enjoy my winter or Marina hopping.

I arrived at the Crinan on Saturday, got to the summit and then encountered Sunday - canal shut - so what else to do but drink. & guests - two scottish sailors, five polish people plus myself. I reckon the old Centaur culd have accommodated two more small ones.
 
dylanwinter said:
What a place!.
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It's very nice, and the food is excellent, but there is stuff all to do there for a longer visit. I like it for short stays, though, and they have brilliantly gone after the "lunch stop" market, particularly for motor boats. Breakfast in the restaurant is well worth it.
 
D I don't know if he is still there but look out for Tom and Babs on Little Ship. He might have made his way south for winter by now! If walking around the village take care and look out for adders!
 
Hey, well done Dylan, that's a quite a few miles through the locks and then down Loch Fyne in days that are becoming shorter by, errmmm, the day....

I'm so pleased that I don't have to feel guilty about not turning up at the weekend to help you through the canal.

It's a constant struggle between priorities. What would you have done - sat in on some jazz festival gigs or helped some old bloke through a canal? ;)

Hope to see you at the Kip jamboree.
 
TSB240 said:
D I don't know if he is still there but look out for Tom and Babs on Little Ship. He might have made his way south for winter by now!
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I think he passed the Colintraive - Rhubodach ferry heading south at 5pm on Saturday ... I was waiting for the 17.10 crossing.
 
dylanwinter said:
so on a sunny sunday the mobos stream from kip to here for lunch and then back -

worth filming as a social phenomenom I presume

than then there is the village
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Remember this is Scotland and not the Solent Dylan, the stream of mobos might number 3 or 4 :)

Used to be different back in the days of the sunsail fleet at kip, everyone would race to get to Tarbet or any of the other nice places on the clyde before them, I recall many a mad dash to get through the kyles ahead.
 
JumbleDuck said:
It's very nice, and the food is excellent, but there is stuff all to do there for a longer visit. I like it for short stays, though, and they have brilliantly gone after the "lunch stop" market, particularly for motor boats. Breakfast in the restaurant is well worth it.
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Took advantage of their three for two earlier in the season. Did the place in the first two hours. Perhaps we might have been better taking three hours (a la mobo) rather than three days!!! Lovely staff and lovely facilities but not particularly dog friendly (well the other two and a half days made for some nice dog walks even though it was tipping down).
 
PeteCooper said:
No ... LittleShip is a rather nice Grand Banks - I think she is a Grand Banks - certainly looks like one.
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Grand Banks . Little Ship Crinan.jpg Mainly described by the NW mob as 50 million matchsticks or 50 pallets glued together with a bit of varnish and paint....
 
dimdav said:
Used to be different back in the days of the sunsail fleet at kip, everyone would race to get to Tarbet or any of the other nice places on the clyde before them, I recall many a mad dash to get through the kyles ahead.
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You get something like that on Saturday afternoons in the Sound of Jura ... hang around Crinan or the MacCormaig islands and watch the mad rush of charter boats heading south from Ardfern and Cruibh, trying to get a place on the pontoon at Port Ellen.
 
Yes it's a beautiful place but the service from the bar and restaurant staff is awful. It takes for ever to get a drink. There always seems to be 3 or 4 behind the bar just faffing around. They look totally uninterested in what they are doing. The new swimming pool and outside infinity pool is lovely but after paying for berthing you'd think it would be cheaper than £12 per person to go for a swim. Portavadie for a late lunch stop then onto Tarbert for the evening is the usual plan. Oh but don't expect food outside the set times. :(
 
dimdav said:
Remember this is Scotland and not the Solent Dylan, the stream of mobos might number 3 or 4 :)

Used to be different back in the days of the sunsail fleet at kip,
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It used be different back in the large fleets of racing yacht days before Sunsail even new the Clyde existed. Anyway, Sunsail were Largs Yacht Haven based.

Portavadie is indeed lovely, they were very helpful when my son left his new mobile phone there and we discovered the fact some days later.

Some great wee places to explore all over the Clyde from Kip Marina Dylan, and maybe some good photo opportunities when the winter racing is under way too.
 
Spyro said:
.... Oh but don't expect food outside the set times. :(
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That's true for many places in Argyle (or anywhere outside larger population centres in Scotland), most recent experience of this is the hotel at Cairnbaan.
 
BlowingOldBoots said:
It used be different back in the large fleets of racing yacht days before Sunsail even new the Clyde existed. Anyway, Sunsail were Largs Yacht Haven based.
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You're right, I'm wrong it was Largs! They must have been returning from a venture further up the Firth when I first encountered them on a sail training boat coming from the Kip direction and the skipper said they were the sunsail fleet, I assumed they had come from Kip as they were rounding Toward point when we were heading up the kyle.
 
wully1 said:
Happens in Argyll as well....

Is the Cairnban not under new ownership?
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I don't know about ownership (or spelling) but the food is nice and the portions generous, also pleasant people. I missed lunch one of the first times I was at the boat, so did not make that mistake again. Departure delayed until I get back from the next hitch as the electrical man is way behind. Had that phone call with the canal people today - painful but there we go, at least I am on the right side of the exchange rate, for once, so that will cover it a bit.
 
Spyro said:
Yes it's a beautiful place but the service from the bar and restaurant staff is awful. It takes for ever to get a drink. There always seems to be 3 or 4 behind the bar just faffing around. They look totally uninterested in what they are doing.
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We stayed there for a couple of nights in late July and ate two dinners and a breakfast in the restaurant. The staff were efficient and friendly at all times, without a faff to be seen.
 
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