Doon the Watter

 

Last Christmas the OH's brother bought him a voucher for a cruise on the Waverley, the world's last remaining working paddle steamer. It was good for the whole year, but time was ticking on and it doesn't stay to cruise from Glasgow all year round, so we got ourselves focussed and booked a trip for Sunday just gone. We opted for a Full Day and not getting off at either of the two ports of call, and both of those are decisions which we would not make again, but then hindsight is a wonderful thing. 

It was an early start, too early for us to get there in time if  combined with a reasonable getting up time in Alloa, so we went over to Glasgow on Saturday, caught up with an academic friend in the afternoon and spent the night at the Glasgow flat. One of the good things about the move, amongst multifarious others, is that we get to see a lot more of son no. 2 who lives there. Even being so close, the next morning was an early-ish start to get to the Glasgow Science Centre from where Waverley departs. (I was going to say sails, but obviously that wouldn't be right, unless sails is an acceptable generic term for the movement of all boats, however powered, Which it may well be. ) Anyway, we got there, and there she was. 

And there also was a piper. To be fair he wasn't provided by the Waverley people to pipe us on board, he was just a young lad taking the chance to earn some pocket money and he didn't stay long. Although long enough to give us a quick swirl of Highland Cathedral, which, don't get me wrong, is a lovely tune, but it does tend to stay with you all day. To that extent it was much less embarrassing than when we boarded The Ghan all those years ago and were greeted as we arrived on the platform with a trumpet fanfare. So embarrassing. 

So the cruise went all along the Clyde, into the Clyde estuary and then turned right ( yes, I know) along the coast, past a couple of islands called the Cumbraes, along the east shore of Arran and through the Kyles of Bute into Loch Scriven. It was impossible to take good photographs of the wonderful scenery because the boat was super full, and there were just too many heads, and bodies, always in the way. Here however is a photo of the entry to Loch Scriven just as we turned around to leave it, with a few arms and bits of boat tubing cropped off. I risked life and limb, not to mention losing my phone, to take this picture, leaning out over the side of the boat as far as I dared so I hope it's appreciated! 

Overall, it was beautiful, a lot of the time it was relaxing, most of the time we had really good weather, warm but overcast so the sun didn't get too hot. It was fascinating to sail down the Clyde estuary and think of my PH D subject dong the same decades ago, first as a student when he used to charter yachts in his vacations and later as he stood on a troopship and glided down the Clyde at the start of the long journey to the North African coast. 

On the downside we were 10 hours on the boat which is a long time to be on a smallish boat with a lot  of other people especially when there are slightly too few seats to accommodate everyone. The seats, except in the eating places, are hard and you really felt them after the first 90 minutes. Rather than the whole day we could have bought a ticket that would have allowed us to get off and then back on at either Rothesay or Largs and in retrospect a few hours in Rothesay might have been fun. But we didn't know that when we booked and I don't think either of us had actually got our heads round quite how small the boat is so that the reality of of ten hours on it wasn't something we had properly internalised. 

Overall though, although I wouldn't do it again, I'm glad we've done it once.