West coast of Scotland - is it cruising friendly?

[Railbob]

Interesting you should include Portavadie in your list of pristine west coast places. Is that the same one where if you walked a couple of hundred yards along the shore, you came across a completely abandoned village covered in graffiti, standing proud testament to the vain effort to reverse the economic depression of the area?

Nope, the village was demolished nearly two years ago and planning consent has been approved for a mixture of social housing, private housing and a distillery. Like all things it’s a bit delayed but hopefully will start soon as the local authorities have had to resurface the road.

[ctva]

Naaah! Chris, don't encourage him, he is is over here often enough as it is.

Oops, sorry.

it’s really terrible here, midges, rubbish, rain, grumpy old Irishmen....

[Motor_Sailor]

Nope . . .

That's why I wrote about it in the past tense.
It was still an eyesore for more than 30 years.
Glad something might be done about it now.

[Quandary]

That's why I wrote about it in the past tense.
It was still an eyesore for more than 30 years.
Glad something might be done about it now.

When I first visited Loch Fyne I found it intriguing, a new, never occupied, vacant village, but until the marina opened you could not get close enough to assess the dereliction. I used to sail right around the big buoyed circle in the middle of the Loch as well because it was a prohibited area on my paper chart. The excavated basin which is now the marina was never that tidy in those days either, probably more unsightly than the vacant village. I am not sure that some of the new housing around the marina looks any better.

[Kelpie]

The area South West of Glasgow has been turned into one large onshore wind farm, so why continue to spoil the rest of your country with these? Fish farms could be confined to areas that are not so special.

Don't you think the fish farm companies would prefer to operate from places with easier access to transport links and a bigger population from which to recruit staff?
They are based where they are for quite necessary technical and environmental reasons.

[JumbleDuck]

They are based where they are for quite necessary technical and environmental reasons.

They are based where they are mainly because people desperate for jobs are less likely to complain about their lochs being killed off by thousands of tonnes of sewage.

[moomba]

They are based where they are mainly because people desperate for jobs are less likely to complain about their lochs being killed off by thousands of tonnes of sewage.

Actually the scientific reason for where they are based, and is why Scottish, Norwegian , Chilean and Canadian Salmon are the major producers , is the flow of water in and out of the Lochs , inlets, Fjords , as the fish need deep circulating water that flows in and out bringing in clean water and oxygen and yes removing the waste of the fish , but fish poo in the sea its a fact , and eutrophication will not happen ,as this is why the good flow of water is needed to remove the nutrients.
All large scale manufacturing production causes a waste product , at least the waste is Natural , and sea lice are now being dealt with with more organic processes , which reduces the chemical intake to the water.
Do we have concerns when we use our diesel engine when the wind does not blow , or spilling our Oil when filling our 2 stroke , we need to be able to have balance and , not point fingers , when when we look at our own behavior , we are not so green after all.

[JumbleDuck]

Actually the scientific reason for where they are based, and is why Scottish, Norwegian , Chilean and Canadian Salmon are the major producers , is the flow of water in and out of the Lochs , inlets, Fjords , as the fish need deep circulating water that flows in and out bringing in clean water and oxygen and yes removing the waste of the fish , but fish poo in the sea its a fact , and eutrophication will not happen ,as this is why the good flow of water is needed to remove the nutrients.

That's the theory. In practice the number of areas with a powerful enough scour are very limited, even on the west coast, and as a result there are fish farms in places where they do enormous harm to the environment. You think they'd stand for that in Cornwall?

https://www2.gov.scot/uploads/docume...ironimpact.pdf

[moomba]

That's the theory. In practice the number of areas with a powerful enough scour are very limited, even on the west coast, and as a result there are fish farms in places where they do enormous harm to the environment. You think they'd stand for that in Cornwall?

https://www2.gov.scot/uploads/docume...ironimpact.pdf

Do not Disagree but the Impact of Fish farming has still to be studied in Great Depth , the Science is aware that below the cages there is a direct effect of Benthic creatures but on the scale of this it is pretty small in comparison to the whole sea bed around Scotland , but there are further Studies continuing and the data that has been collected so far warrants more investigation
Statistical analysis showed that EmBz had the biggest negative effect on the crustacean
abundance and richness. This effect was detectable below the current EQS, this adds to the
weight of evidence that the current EQS may not be protective of benthic ecology beyond the
100m from the cages.
These results indicate that the impacts of farms may extend beyond their immediate vicinity.
Further work is now required and is ongoing to understand the wider-scale cumulative
impacts.
https://www.sepa.org.uk/media/387055...vey_report.pdf

But I keep repeating this throughout threads about Scotland , there needs to be a balance for the economy and for Jobs and for people to live , there are a lot of retired people on these site and they have lived an gt their pensions and enjoying the fruits of their hard work but their are other generations growing up and they need Jobs and security .
I am a environmentalist and the Good lady does work for Sepia now and then, in fact her latest research is funded by them ,so we are aware of the impacts of industry , but no naive enough to know that Humans are part of this planet too and we must learn to co exist in harmony

[steve yates]

It doesn't have to be a theme park, but there is an element of truth in this.

Simply waxing lyrical about the west coast, can lead some first time visitors to be pretty disappointed if they end up in some of the wrong places. It's surely better to at least tell them that is an area which combines stunning beauty with a variety of downsides, including a number of social-economic challenges. Most of the 'drop dead gorgeous' stretches of coastline in the more popular English cruising grounds are usually backed by at least a 'quaint veneer of prosperity', but with the exception of the usual candidates (Tobermory, Plockton, Ullapool, etc), there are loads of places on the west coast where life is a struggle. These often do not prioritise 'the look of the place', and although it is perhaps better than it was, it's still true that there are still bays and anchorages blighted by waste from the fish farm industry, abandoned cars, derelict mobile homes, etc.

Considering the generally vast scales of underpopulation, this really isn't much of a problem. The west coast of scotland is stunning, the northwest even more so! Just think for a second of sailing through the solent on a good day and the extent of man and industrialisation visible to your naked eye, all day long. Even with some rusting tractors, piles of old creels and the odd fridge... there is nothing of the scale of eyesore you are looking at on a regular basis in the south.