A Wee Detour

I did say that I would tell you one particular tale about our long-running saga of ferry travel, didn’t I?

Even those of you who live on the Scottish mainland, or indeed further afield, must surely be aware of the ongoing controversy surrounding our island ferries. For we innocent islanders, I’m afraid it’s just another routine day at the office. Some of my Facebook friends may already have read this, but hey-ho.

I still vividly recall the very first time that the port of Troon stumbled into the Arran ferry equation. Please allow me to regale you with my own recollection of the red-letter day that was 10 February, 2024. Believe me, it was an absolute stoater.

‘Superbowl’ weekend in far-flung Las Vegas. The planet’s biggest televisual spectacular of the year and a perennial family bash in downtown Kildonan for as long as I can remember. Bring it on.

Steak mince about to be delivered to the front door by the local butcher and awaiting conversion to American burgers. Red Stripe beers chilling in the fridge for the guys. Tanqueray gin in the drinks’ cabinet for the gals. Ice lollies in the freezer for the grandweans. And, of course, anything remotely edible for the family’s three Labradors locked away in heavily reinforced steel cages. Everything sorted.

Well, when I say ‘everything’, perhaps I might have left out one tiny little detail, and that is this. We were still on the mainland at the time … and waiting expectantly to be whisked back over to the rock by CalMac Ferries Limited, whose new buzzword those days seemed to be ‘resilience’. How remiss of me to have omitted that little piece of information.

So, there we all were, then … my partner Ali, the Twa Dugs and yours truly in deepest Renfrewshire, and my son and his young family (replete with a third big dug) in even deeper Ayrshire, and all about to head off to Ardrossan harbour in whoopy-do holiday mode. The weans were babbling excitedly, the dugs were barking for Scotland and the adults were scratching each others’ eyes out about the catering arrangements, as such occasions traditionally demand. In other words, it was as good as it gets.

Ping. Text message from CalMac.

‘Your sailing has been diverted from Ardrossan to Troon due to stronger than expected easterly winds. Deal with it and tough luck with your precious holiday arrangements.’ (I paraphrase for effect.)

So, tut-tutting, but still in admirably jaunty spirits, off we headed from our respective points of departure for Troon rather than Ardrossan, our zest for the delightful family gig awaiting us in Kildonan still unabashed.

Ping. CalMac again. What now?

‘Due to howling gales, your diversion to Troon has been an exercise in complete futility, your sailings have now been cancelled altogether and you don’t stand a cat’s chance in hell of getting rebooked onto another ferry this side of Easter.’ (I think I may just have paraphrased again.)

What to do, what to do? Stick pins in an effigy of CalMac’s Chief Executive was one tempting thought, but we simply didn’t have sufficient time.

So, my son and I had a pow-wow. We decided there and then that the interests of our party, consisting as it did of a particularly diverse tapestry of ages, must take absolute precedence. But not, of course, at the expense of Superbowl. I mean, perish the very thought and wash our mouths out with hot and soapy water.

Claonaig in deepest Argyll it was, then. A minor detour, we scoffed, a piece of cake (carrot cake as it would later transpire, if you care to read on).

And that was when the women clocked one slight logistical problem that the men may just have overlooked in their eagerness to hit Arran and crack open the chilled beers before supper time. As we stood there at Troon harbour in a breeze so gentle that an empty crisp poke had lain undisturbed on the tarmac for the past fifteen minutes, it was now two o’clock in the afternoon, my youngest granddaughter was only three years old and we still had a 138-mile drive ahead of us to Claonaig. And all, of course, in the laughable assumption that we would actually be able to get onto a ferry to Arran’s northern port of Lochranza before nightfall, with half of the island’s temporarily stranded population no doubt having exactly the same idea.

It was then that Ali had one of her infamous ‘great ideas’. Now to be fair, she is as sharp as a tack, genuine salt-of-the-earth (and drop-dead gorgeous into the bargain). But as far as her latest great idea was concerned, this one was as dodgy as a seven-pound note. Basically, it was this.

She decided that we should book an overnight stay in Inveraray (yes, Inveraray), to break our journey in order to let everyone have a good night’s kip before descending en masse on Claonaig early the following morning to beat the expected traffic queue at the port. Good thinking, we all agreed, before proceeding to make clear to her the awesome personal responsibility that she was now carrying on her shoulders should it all go pear-shaped.

And so, off we set. Then, having reached Inveraray after a good couple of hours’ drive, we parked our cars and deposited their considerable contents of four adults, two small weans and three big dugs, not to mention the associated conglomeration of suitcases, children’s buggies and assorted sustenance, both solid and liquid, into the tiniest two-bedroomed flat that I had ever clapped eyes upon. (You may be interested to know that The Seven Dwarves were among those who had previously signed the visitors’ book.)

My son and I then left the weans to thump seven bells out of the landlady’s piano (I mean, who in their right mind would leave a piano in a letting house?) and the women to unpack, as we took on the much more demanding role of casing the delights of Inveraray and booking a meal in a local hotel. However, not before sampling a few beers and ingratiating ourselves to the locals, as fine manners and long tradition surely require.

Our evening meal turned out to be lovely … which was more than could be said for the next morning’s breakfast, on account of the fact that all we had been able to purloin in the mad rush from home were two punnets of strawberries, a packet of Walker’s shortbread, two bags of Maltesers and an oversized slice of carrot-cake that had definitely seen much better days. However, after bundling our assorted human and canine passengers into our respective cars before 6.30am, we would at least be at the head of the ferry queue when we eventually reached Claonaig.

Wouldn’t we?

Well, we might have been if my son hadn’t required to pull his car over less than half a mile from the ferry terminal. And why, I hear you ask? Because his ravenous three-year-old had earlier scoffed every last one of the aforementioned strawberries and was now puking them back up in fine projectile fashion. The inside of his car looked like Barbie’s toilet after a hen-do.

As we sat there in abject dismay watching two Co-op lorries, four motorhomes and umpteen other vehicular contraptions whiz past us, we could only shudder as we contemplated our newly-enforced position in the ferry queue.

In the event, it turned out to be Number 63 (yes, sixty-three). The single-track road between the Carradale cut-off and Skipness village resembled a refugee evacuation route, only with torrential rain thrown in for good measure.

Some four-and-a-half hours later, we eventually caught the fifth ferry of the day to Lochranza, courtesy of those ever-reliable, hard-grafting port officers and ferry crew who should be draped with medals while their political masters sit in ivory towers concocting yet more inane excuses to explain their own serial incompetence and try to justify their over-inflated salaries.

And then, as I was driving off the ferry at Lochranza … you’ve guessed it.

Ping. CalMac yet again.

However, this one really did take the biscuit.

‘Dear customer, you recently travelled with CalMac. Could you please take a moment to rate our performance?’

According to my family, it was only after my second beer in Kildonan that I actually regained the power of speech. However, we were home at last. All that remained now was to prepare dinner, tuck the weans into bed and settle down to watch the six-hour extravaganza that is Superbowl. Either that, or respond to CalMac’s latest customer satisfaction survey.

I chose the former, because the latter would have taken far, far too long.