Monday 26 June
A calm day of hazy sunshine saw us motor thankfully away from Girvan and across to Ailsa Craig. We paused in a temporary, 
kelp-strewn anchorage off the East side for a tasty lunch of halloumi dipped in sesame seeds and griddled with red pepper, red chilli and garlic, piled into a warmed pitta bread with houmous, cucumber and sweet Spanish cherry tomatoes. It not being quite warm enough for a siesta, we were amused by the performing seal colony near the lighthouse, and then slid under the gannet granite: 
thousands of them, sharing this amazing natural formation of columns with guillemots and gulls, and wheeling overhead in the thermals. While not exactly peaceful, the sound was deep and gravelly, not cacophanous, and even the gulls’ calls seem less raucous in their natural environment than when heard in towns.
Finally Mate has ticked off one of her bucket list items, in seeing puffins off the Western side of the rock. They were absolutely adorable, much smaller than she expected and quite shy. We were able to drift among them as the sea was so calm, taking the opportunity for as many photos as possible.
This is not original, but is how she recorded in her journal those minutes with the puffins:
“Life is not about how many breaths you take, but about the moments that take your breath away.
This is the sort of experience we hoped for in embarking on this new way of life…after days of wind and cold in miserable little towns with unwelcoming harbours…this is what it’s all about.”
A kindly fellow sailor in Girvan had invited us to borrow his permanent mooring when we arrived in Lamlash Bay, between Arran and Holy Island, that evening. It proved a struggle as the rope was heavily encrusted with small mussels, but Skipper persevered and eventually I was securely tied on. Mate got on with supper, and afterwards they sat in my cockpit enjoying a stunning sunset and (in Mate’s case) a bit of knitting, until it started to rain.