The more observant of you may have noticed an increase in the number of toilets & showers planned for our new building. As always this raises the problem of water supply.

Here in Kerrera we have no mains water supply and rely on spring water for our needs. This works by piping water stored in a hillside tank firstly to the farm, then a residential caravan and the big house and finally to the marina. We have a number of large water tanks behind the yard which fill during wet weather and - after filtering - supply the marina, the Waypoint and the Boathouse. There is another spring supplying the Log Cabin and the house on Rubh'a Chruidh.

During dry spells, the spring dries up and supply gradually reduces and stops.  When we see this beginning to happen, we turn on our de-salination unit which keeps us topped up in normal summer usage. Our storage holds about a week's worth of water.

Naturally, we hope that the new building will attract more visitors to Oban Marina, so we are planning for more water usage in the near future.

Firstly we are talking to the powers-that-be about a mains supply. This would come over the narrows at the north end of the island and, as part of the council's plans for a new road on Kerrera, could supply the south of the island as well.

In the meantime we will put rainwater collection tanks underneath the decking at the front of the new building which will supply the toilets and showers. We will also add more tanks for spring water collection as we need them.

The de-salination unit will move to the new building and we will increase capacity. The de-sal guru is visiting in April to look at what we need.