After a few days in Millport we were still on the Mooring balls rather than at anchor and there was a very good reason for this. The mooring balls were free. Now realistically we could of moved to the anchorage, but we were feeling particularly lazy, so we decided to relax rather than spend an hour just to move a short distance. But even a good laze has got to come to an end so it was time to drop the mooring ball and move on.

It was a cracking day for a sail so as soon as we had left Millport the sails were up and the engine was off. Up near Millport there is a small channel and we tacked all the way down it with myself on the helm, so I feel that I have really ticked off the list sailing in a confined channel. Once out of the channel we could sail for quite a way, we were going really slow at just 3.2knots but the sails were up, the engine off and we were loving it. We were going really well, but soon we were going to be on a collision course with a fishing vessel. The fishing vessel was nor on AIS so we tried to contact him by radio with no response, so we did the only thing that we could which was tack away from him, we also put the engine on for a short time so that we had more options available to us. Once we had completed another tack back to our original track then the engine was off. We were still sailing towards the fishing vessel but this time we would be well behind it leaving plenty of space for his fishing tackle. After that it was just plain sailing to the moorings at Lamlash.

The next day, we continues our journey, hoping to go to Stranraer, the first part of the sail was really great, nice sailing weather with plenty of sunshine. Then all of a sudden the weather changed very quickly. The reason for the change in weather was we had a warm front on our hands. It was a really classic warm front with:-

• Halo around the sun - This is the early signs of a warm front
• High level sheet cloud - As the front progresses the cloud starts with high level sheet cloud, which starts to lower as the front progresses.
• Water sun - As the warm front progresses then the sun become watery.
• Wind - Changing direction and increasing in strength. this meant that we quickly changed our sail plan from full sails to two reefs in the main, very quickly

The wind was of course coming from the direction that we wanted to go so it meant that we had two choices on our hands, going to Girvan or going to Troon. Now Girvan has a tidal gate and we would not be able to get into Girvan for four hours, so we decided that we would head for Troon, it meant that we had a following sea, but better that, than trying to beat into it.

Once in Troon, the front did arrive, but it was quite mild so we got on with computer work. We had hoped to sail the next day, but realistically, I was exhausted, so we decided to go the next day.