Scottish anchorages

This site is primarily for anyone who cruises between the Mull of Kintyre and the Small Isles north of Ardnamurchan. It is not completely complete, there are some 'official' anchorages missing, and some photographs still to be taken, but it is good enough - anyway websites are never 'finished', this one will certainly grow as I learn more, and hopefully get feedback.
 
This site is not about how to get to the anchorages which is well described in the Sailing Directions, but about what to see and do after you have anchored or, these days increasingly and rather boringly, tied up to a mooring or a pontoon. So it is dedicated to those hardy folk who leap forward to pull up the anchor while the skipper shouts encouragement, or abuse.

The page for each anchorage can be accessed from the west coast map and areas tab at the top of each page which provides links to the main areas, each of which has links to the anchorages in that area - just three clicks and you are there - as well as a link to the photo gallery and a downloadable pdf of the pages for all the anchorages in that area.

This was originally supposed to be a book, my last remaining ambition being to appear at the Edinburgh Book Festival. But that was because when I had the idea it was so long ago that the Internet hardly existed, and certainly Internet access from the West Coast was nothing like as good as it is today (who had heard of iphones and dongles in the last century?).

I suppose it must have been in the mid 1990s that I realised there was a gap in the information for sailors on the West Coast of Scotland, and indeed in many other places as well. The admirable Clyde Cruising Club Sailing Directions, and the Martin Lawrence Sailing Directions, tell you how to get to the anchorages, where the rocks are, where to anchor and so on. The tourist and travel books are all well and good, but tend to miss out the places you can only get to by boat, and anyway so many are written largely for people in cars. The reference books are mostly too bulky to keep on board. In short, there was and amazingly still is, a gap in the middle - what to see and do when you get to an anchorage (not just lounge about on board drinking and eating without even bothering to inflate the tender). Of course you can load yourself up with various books some of which are listed under useful books, but they take up space, some you wouldn't want to risk getting wet, and anyway there would be too much searching about to do to find what you wanted. And crucially these days, the Internet provides connectivity to a whole host of useful websites - you will find them on many of the anchorage pages and some others. So here we are, a website to plug the gap, at least from Kintyre to around the Small Isles.