Monthly Archives: July 2008

2008 Open Angling Championship Final

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The Open Championship is a competition open to all people who are either individual members of the Scottish Anglers National Association (SANA) or members of Clubs affiliated to SANA. The aim of the event is to encourage people to try competition angling and to generate funds to support the wide spectrum of work carried out by SANA to benefit game angling in Scotland.

The dates for the 2008 competitions are: Heat 1 Monday 2nd June; Heat 2 Monday 23rd June (evenings); with the Final all day on Monday 18th August.

Colonsay mourns former teacher

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The island of Colonsay mourns the death of Miss Margaret Walker, a highly respected and influential member of the community who passed away peacefully on Tuesday 22nd July. Miss Walker came to Colonsay in 1964 as head teacher in the Primary School, a role which she fulfilled until retirement; her former charges are now scattered across the world but will be united in their fond memories and the esteem in which they held her. Margaret enjoyed a very wide range of interests, but always found time for other people and for the needs of the community – not least through her work on the Hall Committee and as an Elder in the kirk. Her cremation and funeral service is to be conducted by Rev. Marshall Gibson near Glasgow on 2nd August and will be followed by a Memorial Service in Colonsay later in the month.

New CalMac ferry design drives harbour development at Kennacraig and Port Ellen terminals

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Port Ellen, Islay The design of a new CalMac ferry being built at a yard in Poland and due to complete in 2011 produced a Scottish Transport Appraisal Guidance (STAG) in 2003. This has now led to planned developments at both terminals concerned on the route between mainland Argyll and the Isle of Islay – Kennacraig and Port Ellen. Caledonian MacBrayne Assets Ltd (CMAL) will have responsibility for and ownership of the project. Following the 2003 Guidance, feasibility studies were done from 2006 to 2007 and Halcrow Group was appointed as engineering consultants to the project in 2008. At a meeting in Islay;s Machrie Hotel, Joe Durkin, Legal Advisor to CMAL, said that the project would require a Harbour Revision Order for Port Ellen as the necessary works will change public navigational access. CMAL will submit an application for this to the Scottish Government and there will be a forty-two day period for public consultation.

The port at Kennacraig on West Loch Tarbert will see changes to Car Parking and the building of a new two-storey passenger terminal with raised, covered walkways to the ferries. At Port Ellen on Islay, land will need to be reclaimed north of the current pier, featuring a new linkspan and dolphin built specifically for the new ferry. The existing pier will remain in use as a second facility. Construction is planned to start in Summer 2009, completing in mid-2011 to coincide with the new CalMac Islay ferry.

Given the recent problematic upgrading of the harbour at Post Askaig on the east of Islay, leaving the neighbouring Ise of Jura with a depleted ferry service from Port Askaig over to Feolin – and no night-time air ambulance cover, public response to the planned developments at Port Ellen and Kennacraig may be cautious.

The copyright on the photograph of Port Ellen (above – looking east from the current ferry terminal) is owned by J M Briscoe and is licensed for reuse under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 license.

Failure of sea lock at Crinan brings Canal closure

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Lock House at Crinan Canal Basin British Waterways has discovered a failure in a critical bond at the sea lock at Crinan on the western end of Argyll’s Crinan canal. Inspection by divers has confirmed the failure – a badly disintegrating concrete cill. This is, of course, the height of the main tourist season where yachts use the nine mile canal as an important and attractive facility for moving between the Atlantic and the Clyde waterway without making the long and often difficult journey around the Mull of Kintyre. Fishing boats will now have to take the long route round the Mull to Oban, facing heavy additional fuel costs of around £500 a time. Because of the impact on the fishing and yachting industries, British Waterways will make a temporary repair, which will still see the canal closed for around two weeks. They will then move to a permanent repair during the much quieter winter period. Underwater repairs of this kind are complex to effect and their execution also depends upon available divers and weather conditions.

The photograph above is by Velela, of the Lock House at the Crinan Canal Basin, published in Wikipedia and has been placed fully in the pubic domain.

Concern amongst islands excluded from RET scheme finds voice

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Argyll’s islands of Mull, Islay, Jura and Colonsay – with strong support from the Isle of Bute and the Cowal peninsula – have decided to launch an ipetition on the Scottish Government’s website, calling for a 40% reduction in ferry fares to these islands. They are not included in the Road Equivalent Tariff (RET) pilot scheme the Government introduced for a thirty month period from October 2008 to April 2011. The pilot reduces fares on specific routes to the equivalent cost of travelling the same distance by road. It is designed to test the contribution to sustainable development such subsidy might support. The routes selected for the pilot scheme are largeky to the Outer Hebrides – Ullapool to Stornoway (Lewis), Uig (Skye) to Tarbert (Harris)/Lochmaddy (North Uist) and Oban to Castlebay (Barra) and Lochboisdale (South Uist), including Oban to Coll and Tiree (Argyll islands). It is this last inclusion that has led to concerns among the excluded Argyll isands. They see a situation developing over the thirty months of the pilot scheme where the included islands embed a market advantage because of the access subsidy denied t the excluded islands. The islanders anxieties and their proposed solutions are supported by local Councillors including Transport Spokesman Duncan MacINtyre who is also Chair of Highlands and Islands Transport (HITRANS). Councillor MacIntyre has called for an kimmediate review of ferry fares. Argyll and Bute MP Alan Reid also supports the islanders, while warning of the need not to imperil the innovative RET scheme.

If you support the islanders’ concerns, click on the petition link in the text above to sign it.

Energetic Colonsay promotes ‘Flying Visits’

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No one can fault the commitment of the residents of Argyll’s Isle of Colonsay to seizing all development opportunities with inventiveness in the interests of their communal sustainability. The launch of the new air service, operated by Highland Airways out of Oban to the islands of Coll Tiree and Colonsay has produced a lively addition to the island;s promotions – Flying Visits, described in detail on their website.

Disappointing ticket take-up for Dunstaffnage Music Festival

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Where the organisers had hoped for the best festival ever at Dustaffnage this year, it turned out to be the least successful to date. This is not good news for Argyll. One of the causes was outside anyone’s control – the poor weather. The second factor contributing to the postponement of the planned Friday-evening start to the event was avoidable. Poor organisation saw a state of unreadiness which, even without the intervention of the weather, would have crippled its start. The weather didn’t let up, though, producing a spasmodic festival taking time out to struggle with marquees that threatened to become hot air balloons at any moment. Saturday’s gig’s didn’t start until after lunchtime and on Sunday it was early evening. Audiences never got beyond a few hundred. Matt Thomas, the festival organiser, has since said he will not run another festival after seeing only 183 tickets sold through outlets in Oban and around 60% of reserved tickets lying unclaimed.

Will new Jura ferry fuel community buy-out bid for Tayvallich shop?

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The growing success of the new fast passenger ferry from Craighouse on Jura to Tayvallich on Argyll’s Kintyre mainland at Loch Sween may just have another benefit to offer. The village shop at Tayvallich has been for sale with no takers for a year. The owner is unable to carry on through another winter and villagers are working to bring it into community ownership, with 78% of households quoted as contributing to funds. The launch of the new ferry service from the village with the additional visitors brought in has already seen a modest economic upturn in the fortunes of the shop – also a coffee shop and Post Office. This must make the business case for community ownership look more buoyant.

Basking shark in Loch Fyne sparks calls to report shark sightings across Argyll

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Basking shark A sharp eye spotted a basking shark in the waters just off the shore of east Loch Fyne, at Letters, a few days ago. Basking sharks aree not aggressive. They are described as ‘filter feeders’ – like living sieves really. They cruise with their huge maws constantly open, filtering and processing the quantities of plankton that they live on. In the 1970s Loch Fyne was used to seeing several in a season and other areas in Argyll beyond the Clyde waterways – like Coll and Tiree, see them regularly. Scotland’s Marine Conservation would appreciate it if folk in coastal Argyll and its islands reported all shark sightings. Phone 0131 2262391.

Photo above is by Chris Gotschalk, published in Wikipedia and is a public domain image used with his complete permission.

Angler swept away in Sound of Islay during Coastguard strike

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An angler in his seventies was swept away on Saturday in Argyll’s Sound of Islay during the forty-eight hour Coastguard strike. The man, who was fishing with friends at Inver on the Jura side of the sound and was not wearing a life jacket, was rescued by a Lossiemouth-based RAF helicopter and taken to Lorn and the Isles Hospital in Oban but died later. Coastguards from Belfast co-ordinated the rescue. Normally Clyde Coastguard would have taken charge from their base at Greeenock but strike action at Scotland’s five control centres left this station unmanned. The Maritime and Coastguard Agency said that Belfast Coastguard had dispatched an RNLI lifeboat, local rescue coastguard teams and a Search and Rescue helicopter – and that all resources were actioned in eight minutes. He pointed out that the man’s lack of a life jacket was the crucial factor in his death, not the specific centre co-ordinating the rescue. The angler apparently slipped and fell into the 10C water, his waders filling. He was found almost a mile away. The Sound of Islay has a nine knot bore, one of the fastest in navigable waters in the UK.