Luxury at last

3 months is quite a long time to be sailing around, and there is one thing we always look forward to in each new place we come to. The showers. We hop from port to port, like a bee, flower-hopping in the height of summer. We don’t go to harbours in search of showers, but we’re always hoping that the next facilities might be at least clean. More often than not we’re disappointed. We’ve seen the word “luxury” used to describe shower facilities too often, only to be let down, so when we saw Portavadie’s facilities described as luxury, we didn’t raise an eyebrow, or exchange hopeful glances. If only we knew then what we know now.

Yachtsmen, by their very nature, have a certain amount of disposable income. We do after all, decide to spend the summer throwing money in the general direction of our boats, however big or small they might be. Yachts aren’t cheap, so it’s pretty fair to say that sailors do enjoy the finer things in life, be that food, wine, whisky or all of the above. We’re not animals, although when sailing we’ll forgo certain luxuries like a good night sleep, a daily wash, and personal space for a good sail to a beautiful part of the world. However when ashore we like to resort to being human again. We’re not cavemen, although we choose to travel is something smaller and wetter, but with slightly more light, than the average cave. We do have certain standards of hygiene, but this simple fact seems to be forgotten by many places we’ve visited.

Unfortunately I can count on one hand the number of clean and tidy shower facilities on one hand. A good shower sticks out in our memory as rare events on our cruise. It shouldn’t be like this, all we ask is for somewhere clean to have a shower and somewhere cleaner to get dressed. More often than not, the changing area is wetter than the cubical where a powerless showers dribbles water at an odd angle. Getting undressed and then dressed while standing in a cold puddle of cloudy water, hair, plasters and toe nails really isn’t why I choose to come sailing. Our Crocs have saved our stomachs turning many times, small rafts of familiar cleanliness that float around while we shower. Crocs are self-righting, and will always land sole down when kicked off in the process of teetering on one leg trying to keep the legs of my jeans dry.

We try to erase the bad showers from our minds like bad dreams. Here are the places that stood out, not because one was better that the other, they all had their good point and bad. So here they are, in the order we discovered them.

The showers in Kilmore Quay, after a terrible crossing they stand out as being clean and tidy and stationary, they were new, with a beige tile thing happening and lots of room. The downside was they cost €2 for 2 minutes. So in a woke-up-late-bus-leaves-in-5-minutes style shower it’s just enough time for a hair and body wash before the time runs out. They do however give you a count down timer to watch15 seconds tick away as they warm up.

Next on our memorable list were the showers at Stomness. They were spotlessly clean on 5 days out of 7. They were roomy, especially the disabled shower compartment, and more like a modern shower room than a cubicle. They were mixed, which wasn’t a problem until you needed to insert your money into the timer. The timers were outside the cubicle. So once undress you had to pop a towel around you to start the timer, running the risk of bumping into a poor person of the opposite sex or a member of the public who had got lost from the ferry terminal waiting room.

The Duisdale hotel. There was luxury. But what else could one expect from a 4 star hotel? It had clean white towels, complimentary toiletries, your own room, a bar downstairs to wait for your partner, the bad news is that they cost £4.50 each, but we didn’t mind paying because they were clean and warm, only the power of the shower, which seemed to be wheezing at the effort of supplying all the water I demanded was the downside.

At Lossiemouth, the new shower facilities were good, free, cleaned regularly, powerful, with funky Mira showers that beeped and had a trendy blue light shining on the front. There were only two for the whole marina, and if we were berthed in the other basin it would have been a walk, but otherwise these were the sort of facilities we could get very use to.

Crinan was the last place to make it onto our list, the showers were large clean and powerful, everything was going their way until they stopped short of the 6 minutes promised. I was half way through a shave, Kirsty still had conditioner in her hair as the water ran dry. We spoke to the chandlery to let them know there might be a problem, and the refunded our money. Good service and good showers, while they lasted.

So that was our list of the 5 showers that had stayed with us in 90 odd days, not because they were particularly special, but because they weren’t as bad as all the others along the way. That was until Portavadie.

Portavadie has just raised the bar. OK they have a head start because the marine is only a couple of years old, but the first thing you notice about the gents bathroom is that they are warm and dry. No shallow end of a swimming pool was there to greet me as I opened the frosted glass door. The duckboards were quality wood, no trace of a previous occupant, it was though I was the first person to use them, and the floor was bone dry. The next thing that caught my eye was the size of the showerhead, large and round like a sunflower head sticking out of the wall, behind a glass door, there was no mouldy curtain to shrink-wrap you as the water comes on.


There was no timer to restrict the water, and a temperature control, not just an anonymous button that chooses what temperature the water will be. In the shower, with hot water cascading over me in a quantity that would dry a loch somewhere, I could still hear the music being played into the bathrooms, a shower listening to George Michael, rather than a man in the cubicle next to me. Getting out of the shower, was the first place I felt I could stand on in bare feet without a risk to my health. I got dressed normally, rather than if I was balancing over a bath of acid.



The sinks were spotless, with Arran Aromatics complimentary hand wash, not only that but there was also a hair dryer….and also a hair straightener! If I had enough hair to straighten I would have used it, not because I need it, but because it was there. I know what you’re thinking, that sort of luxury doesn’t come cheap. Actually it does, it was all included in the price of the berth. £21 odd for Pixie (at 9.6 metres) isn’t really that expensive. When you think about how much is spent on showers. One when you arrive, one the next morning, that £2/person for £4 for us. £17 a night for a stay in a marina, and usable “Luxury” Showers (note the capital L).

I feel at Portavadie, I’ve seen a glimpse of the future. And it’s LUXURY!