Well, they have voted to leave haven’t they. We had planned to attend the 90th birthday of Andrea’s mother, Gisela, in Bonn so Diomedea was berthed at the remarkably average Oban marina opposite the town. The marina is for sale and the owners really have lost their mojo in regards its ongoing management. Nevertheless it served the purpose for what turned out to be quite hard travelling over two days from Oban to Bonn by ferry, bus, taxi, foot, tram, airplane, and rental car in often diabolical weather. By luck, we had a night in Edinburgh and attended one event (out of the many hundreds available) of the Fringe Festival. The theatre event was based on the true story of the Lonely Hearts Club killers in the USA in the 50’s. The show was called “Hummingbird” which was the nickname for the electric chair in New York, based on the sound it made during the active phase of its duty cycle. We enjoyed the performance for its synthesis of acting and physical theatre but do not recommend it as a “first date” night out. Unfortunately with the festival, most accomodation was booked out and we stayed in the very underwhelming Northumberland hotel.
The birthday itself went off extremely well with an excellent lunch at a ritzy golf club in the picturesque Ahrtal in outstandingly sunny conditions. It was good to catch up with various members of Andrea’s family as well as our son Angus. Gisela was in good form and basically partied all day and on into the next week.
Our stay was brief so we bid farewell for the long trip back to Glasgow to inspect some marinas for our winter haul out. The weather was good for our return to Oban and we finally obtained views of the mountainous interior of Scotland. Then reprovisioning for our next few weeks and we headed up the Sound of Mull via Loch Aline to the gorgeous Loch Drom Buie. Here we had a stunning sunset in crystal clear skies, closely followed by the full moon rising. We had dinner in the cockpit and stayed out until dark. See, there is a god.