The Islay Ferry

Hebridean Isles Nears Kennacraig

The usual ferry route to Islay is from Kennacraig on West Loch Tarbert, a few miles south of Tarbert on the Kintyre peninsula. Today's visitor will travel to Port Ellen or Port Askaig in comfort on the M.V. Hebridean Isles, built in Selby in Yorkshire in 1985.

Hebridean Isles Lounge Cafeteria TV Lounge Kennacraig Ferry Terminal The Arran, Loading at Kennacraig

In Summer the normal frequency of around three sailings per day from Kennacraig to Islay is added to by sailings from Oban on Wednesdays and Saturdays. The second photo below right shows another variation, with the Isle of Arran standing in as relief ship.

The twice a week additional services echo an earlier time. The first steam sailings to Islay date back to 1825, and by 1876 the P.S. Islay was being operated twice weekly from Glasgow around the tip of Kintyre to Islay by an ancestor company of today's CalMac.

Hebridean Isles at Kennacraig

Hebridean Isles Leaving Kennacraig

Hebridean Isles Leaving Port Ellen

Port Askaig from the Hebridean Isles

A timetable from 1880 shows an alternative for those in a hurry to reach the island. Catching the P.S. Columba at 7.00am in Glasgow and after calls at Greenock, Dunoon and Rothesay (amongst other places) you reached Tarbert at 11.45am.

You then caught a horse drawn coach across the narrow neck of land to West Loch Tarbert, not far from today's ferry terminus. From here you took a 12.40pm "Swift Steamer" which, after a call at Gigha, arrived in Port Ellen at 3.40pm or, on Mondays, Port Askaig at 3.30pm.

In 2006 you'd probably be able to save a couple of hours on that total journey time. And in the days before modern roads and roll-on roll-off ferries there were probably periods when the 1880 timetable seemed a pretty good deal.

By the 1960s, efforts to provide better and faster links to Islay even produced a proposal for a ferry link from the Crinan area west of Lochgilphead to the northern tip of Jura. A road would then be built down the east side of Jura, connecting with a good ferry link across the narrow Sound of Islay to Port Askaig. Happily for the continuing tranquility of Jura, the Kennacraig solution was eventually chosen instead.

En route to Islay the Hebridean Isles first sails down West Loch Tarbert. As it emerges from the loch the Paps of Jura spring into view, and then command the horizon, as they will throughout your stay on Islay.

To the east there are striking views across the low-lying island of Gigha, no longer a port of call, to the Kintyre peninsula: and across both Gigha and Kintyre to the still more distant mountains on Arran. It takes sharper eyes to spot the newer addition to the Kintyre skyline, the large windfarms down the spine of the peninsula.

Your arrival in Islay might take you past the white painted coastal distilleries of Ardbeg, Laphroaig and Lagavulin before you arrive in Port Ellen with its equally nicely painted, but no longer operational, distillery. Or you will be taken into the Sound of Islay with close-up views of the southern end of Jura en route to Islay's second ferry terminal in the tiny village of Port Askaig.

The Hebridean Isles Approaching Port Ellen