Scozmo's Photery

The Skelpies

June 30th – Cannae miss yer breakfast oan the last day! 🙂 The Spinnaker Hotel does a great breakfast, you can have a full Spinney (a full Scottish fry) or a wee Spinney, which I decided to have today and the coffee they serve!!!!! Deelish.

This is a family run hotel that always has a warm welcome, good food and drinks and views to die for, if you book a front room, which we always do.

So, up, eat and out for a quick wander along the prom before heading homewards.

I walked along to McInroy’s Point, where the ferry goes to Dunoon and back again, just over 2 miles, perfect for an after-fry-up breakfast 🙂

The yacht club, on the far right above, is where I go to collect sea glass but this morning I carried on past.

I’d spotted a Back Guillemot further out on the water but it moved a little closer to shore as I walked.

I reached McInroy’s Point and crossed the entrance / exit roads to stop off and look farther down the Clyde.

A Black-backed Gull and a Shag were using one of the piles each as preening posts.

On the shore beyond, an Oystercatcher was preening on one leg,….. like they do!

I don’t think it liked being photographed, that look it’s giving me in the second shot!!!! 🙂

I started back and made the return a faster walk, for the exercise, it would be check-out time soon so, time to load up and hit the road. The sky was looking ok so I thought we might stop off at The Skelpies! Every time I type that, it auto-corrects to Kelpies so, I’ll add a link to those as well, to clarify 🙂

The Skelpies, this is a Scottish / Glasgow phrase – SKELP, v.¹, n.¹, adv. Also skilp, skellop. [skɛlp]

I. v. 1. (1) tr. and intr. To strike, hit, esp. with something flat, as the palm of the hand, etc., to slap, smack, specif. to smack the bottom, to spank (Sc. 1721 Ramsay Poems (S.T.S.) I. Gl., 1808 Jam.; Ayr. 1811 W. Aiton Agric. Ayr. 693). Gen.Sc. Vbl.n. skelpin, a thrashing, spanking, ppl.adj. skelpit in phr. skelpit leatherin, id. (Per., wm.Sc. 1970). https://dsl.ac.uk/entry/snd/skelp_v1_n1_adv

So this sculpture, actually known as The Shipbuilders, is a tribute to the ship workers of the Clyde, mostly a dead trade these days but Scottish / British shipbuilding was world beating back in its hey-day.

In June 2023 this sculpture was unveiled as a tribute to all the workers on the Clyde, here’s a short film clip about the sculpture and the work of John McKenna

I find them fantastic and wonderful to photograph in the right conditions; my first visit was in the rain or at least “gie dreich”; on this morning, the light was pretty good. I must add, The Kelpies are also fabulous to see and photograph.

As we drove along the road, heading for the sculpture, I couldn’t help but notice the dark clouds across the water, they’d possibly make a great backdrop, have to wait and see.

We parked at the Skelpies car park, easy to miss the turning on the main dual carriageway out of Port Glasgow, there were a few cars parked but no-one at the sculpture at all, always good.

I have never visited after dark, when they are lit up with changing coloured lights just like the Kelpies over near Falkirk, which I have seen lit up and in stormy weather!

I hadn’t realised that shot was taken way back in 2017 when I was up this way with a job, I could see that storm coming and held on until ………. yep, I got soaked!

Anyway, I digress. Back to the Skelpies!

There follows, a selection of shots taken as I walked my way around the sculpture, some wide, taking in the surroundings and the dark sky over the river, some closer in, showing more detail of the figures themselves. Personally, I find them fascinating.

I walked around them always looking for that angle of interest and trying to avoid the tower blocks in the background.

Got to love that gull

Remember I mentioned the dark sky across the river? That’s the Clyde in the background and beyond ….. ominous cloud.

As you may notice, the light kept changing but that made things more interesting.

Imagine waking to that face looking down at you!!!

Look at that sky, love it!

I think they’re pretty impressive figures, we actually drove by as they were being built on the site but had no clue what was going on.

I’m also old enough to remember when the shipyards on the Clyde were constantly busy, streams and streams of men in flat caps bursting out the gates at dinner time. My lovely lady actually worked in one of the yards along the road from here when she was but a slip of a lass.

Apologies for the deluge of images of one subject but, I just love them so, one last dark face!

Eventually, and I wasn’t actually there for very long, we headed for home, another trip to Gourock over, back to reality and the peace and quiet of the countryside 🙂

Hope you’ve enjoyed our weekend trip and this visit to these fabulous guys. 🙂

Stay well a’

wanderings