Scottish anchorages

There are many very useful and even wonderful books out there, worth having on the boat if you have the room; they have certainly been a great resource for writing this website.

(click here for Sailing Directions)

Logs

Leaves from Rowan's logs; cruises on the west coast of Scotland R.B.Carslaw, Robert Ross and Co Ltd, London, 1944 is the account by a Glasgow surgeon of how in the 1930s he introduced his wife and 5 children to sailing on the Clyde and up sometimes to as far as Torridon. He also had a dog aboard. While he doesn't tell us all that much about the places he visited or the family dynamics it is certainly interesting to read about cruising in what were then empty seas; he anchored in Ardfern, Craobh Haven and Dunstaffnage long before there were any marinas. Puilladobhrain was clearly a great favourite but he didn't seem to walk over the hill to the pub. And so was the Brandy Stone, a large lump of rock on the shore just south of Oban Sailing Club, an area now occupied by moorings. He seems to have had far worse weather than we have today, or maybe he was just exaggerating as the book was written from his logs 10 or more years after the cruises.

General guide books

Scotland the Best Peter Irvine, HarperCollins, London, 2011, now in its 11th edition, is quite simply the best guide to Scotland - beaches, walks, pubs, hotels, everything. It is specific rather than sensitive as we say in the medical trade, in other words there are some good places missing but those that are mentioned are almost invariably excellent. I don't think there is anywhere in this book within reach of an anchorage that I have not mentioned.

The Scottish Islands Hamish Haswell-Smith, Canongate, 2nd Edition revised 2008 is the bible, albeit not by definition of the mainland of Scotland. The drawings, by the architect author, are charming and the information encyclopaedic. It is has to be on the boat really.

'Pevsner' is the generic term for all those wonderfully detailed books about the buildings of England (and now Scotland as well as Ireland and Wales) which were originally written by Nikolaus Pevsner, the architectural historian, between 1951 and 1974. The two volumes you need for these anchorages are Argyll and Bute by Frank Arneil Walker, 1992, Penguin Books and Highlands and Islands by John Gifford, Yale University press, 2003.

Some more quirky books about the area

Tea with Chrissie, the story of Burg and Ardmeanach on the Isle of Mull. Rosalind Jones, Craigmore Publications, Isle of Mull, 2007. A wonderful account of the old lady who outlived all her siblings and hung on in her cottage in a remote part of Mull until she died. In her later years she became well known to the hundreds of people who visited the fossil tree because it was de rigueur on the way to call in to see her and have a cup of tea and a scone. This book gives a very good idea of what Mull was like through the 20th century.