Show on map
Ardbeg Distillery, Islay
Good weather returned for our second visit of the season to these islands. We had a good breeze down the Sound of Jura to Craighouse, where we had a good bar meal at the Isle of Jura Hotel. We went through the snaking channel of the Ardmore Islands on our way down to Port Ellen on Islay. On a glorious summer afternoon we walked to Ardbeg and back – a stretch with four distilleries in three miles (Port Ellen, Laphraoig, Lagavulin & Ardbeg). As our Irish friend Anthony remarked ” there are seven distilleries on Islay and I’ve had a drink in all ten of them”! We were a bit early in leaving to round the Mull of Kintyre thanks to conflicting advice from the Yachtsman’s Pilot and the Tidal Atlas – we’ll be relying on the latter in future. Despite losing time to some adverse tide we were in Campbeltown at dusk. There the Mate left by bus for Glasgow, leaving the Skipper with a few days to take the boat back to Dumbarton to finish the season’s cruising.