Monday 14 June 2010 Troon N550 32.698’ W0040 40.627’

Departed at 0900 hours for Troon, in the Firth of Clyde.

Having been aground in the River at Kircudbright for many hours the previous day, Mark Hillman advised that there was no problem in getting out at any stage of the tide. Hence, following his advice, we set off judiciously half-an-hour after low water. On leaving the inner harbour we ran aground. Mark, ever helpful, spoke to the ex-Harbour Master who advised that we had run onto the sand bank in the middle of the channel and we should have gone over to the right, near the rocks.

The passage to Troon was predominately light winds but with sunshine much of the way. Motor sailing much of the way, it was a fast passage. And wonderful to be entering the Clyde as the starting point to an exploration to the Firth of Clyde, onto the Western Islands and finally into the Caledonian Canal.

Troon Marina is inside a commercial but has excellent facilities, including strong free wi fi connection allowing us to catch up on emails and posting entries to the blog. The basic harbour facilities are in poor condition having been built presumably in the 19th century and became part of the British Transport Docks Board and hence part of ABP when the ports were privatised. As with many other oldports, today it must be an issue as what to do with the infrastructure that exist.