Saturday to Tuesday

8-10 June 2025

Good morning all, we’re all now starting to stir on Tuesday morning, we’re far further along the Caledonian canal - at Inverlochy than I had thought possible, after a hectic few days……

Saturday had been taken up with a barbecue at Wreck Bay in NE Bute, a joint effort with the Clyde Cruising Club with about 5 boats arriving at various times and a surprisingly dry afternoon doing barbecue things on the beach, the weather had been supposed to be wet but it wasn’t however it was breezier than ideal with the NW wind blowing onto the beach. Ian Nicolson was there looking incredibly sprightly for someone who, in his own words, is approaching late middle age. (96 in human years). I had to get away promptly as we had a choir practice at 1715 and bundled various wet and, hopefully happy, crew members back aboard  at about 1600, we arrived at the mooring in time for me to rush off leaving Graham to pack up on the boat and take the others back in the Rib ashore along with the wakeboard, barebecue wet clothes and so on. I had known I’d be tight for time so Graham had kindly agreed to remove the rib from the water and take it back to the house whilst I was readying myself for choir.

I rinsed my feet off, got into my singing clothes, cut up a quiche my donation for the after singing supper, and went to get into the car to drive to the church, only to realise that my car was at the slip, being used to remove the boat from the water. This delayed me for practice where I turned up a little late, not something I’m all that comfortable with and I missed the warm ups. The performance went well and I think most people, especially ourselves enjoyed it. All the solo, including my own, performances went well as did the choir numbers and most people stayed behind for a blether and some tea afterwards. I went home for a bath.

Preamble over.

Sunday morning saw me on the boat with Graham at 0800 and we slipped the mooring packing up as we motored down the Kyle. The wind was supposed to be in the West. There was none initially. Arriving off Ardlamont the wind was light and on the nose from the SW, 0800 had been the lates we could leave to make the Mull of Kintyre tide for that evening’s tide and we had to average about 5 knots so with the wind light and on the nose we just motored down Kilbranan sound refreshing ourselves with sausages in brioche with a fried egg garnish. We had some ESE winds for a time and sailed and motorsailed a bit until rounding the Mull we picked up the, advertised, Westerly winds. From here, it was about 1700, we had a good full sail breeze and made good speed up the sound of Jura eating a steak pie, potatoes and broccoli dinner with the steak or possibly mince, pie being one from the butchers at Wemyss Bay and surprisingly good and although it said it was for 2-3 people actually managed to feed both Graham and I fairly well.

With the wind looking like it might fade away I thought it might be good to get out the assymetric for extra asstistance, Graham wasn’t so sure, we brought it up and partially readied it but as the wind was now blowing at about 12-15 knots decided agains it. We were making good about 7 knots and at around dusk the breeze picked up to about 23 knots, which prompted us to put in a couple of reefs. This being the first time sailing this year the reefing wasn’t as smooth a manoeuvre as it should have been but it was successfully completed and we pushed on with a two reefed main and slightly rolled genoa. I dozed ‘til 2100 with Graham on watch and took over for the 2100- Midnight shift as we sailed up the sound of Jura, by the time I handed the watch back to Graham we were on track to catch the tide through Pladda which we duly did at about 0100. On my watch the wind had died a little, I’d shaken out the reefs, then motored for about 20 minutes before the wind had picked up again and I’d stopped the engine and re reefed the sails. Graham took her up to Lismore and it looked like, if we carried on at about 6.5 knots we’d just make the tide at Corran too. The wind had died around Oban but we motored up and just made the tide at Corran after which I stopped the engine poled the genoa out to port and the main out to starboard for a gentle 3 knot goosewinged run into Fort William and Corpach. As it was still only around 0800 we decided to potter up Loch Shiel for a gander before returning to the Sea Loch, at, what we thought, was opening time. I had been reading the skippers briefing notes on my telephone, which I could only just manage by blowing the thing up as large as possible and had started to worry we might be under crewed with just the two of us  because they talked 2 on deck for handling ropes and 2 ashore for walking lines between the Locks. Anyway there was a bit of a Southerly wind blowing onto the berth at the lock and we berthed there and found a very helpful Lock Keeper quite happy to accept us even though we had failed to give them the required 24 hours notice. I had booked myself in for the Wednesday thinking we might get there a on Tuesday and not expecting at all to make it on the Monday. We’d actually done the trip in just about 24 hours which was pretty good going.

As there were boats coming down before we could go up we pottered to the basin and I spotted a Wauqiez Gladiateur, which was what Freya my boat from the Single handed transatlantic race had been, the couple aboard were from Germany over for a Summer cruising on the West Coast of Scotland. We chatted for a few minutes before heading back to the boat. We had to spring off the berth fairly decisively as there was a 12 knot breeze blowing us on but this worked fine and soon we were in the sea lock. We have the bow and stern lines on blocks on the tow rail lead to the cockpit winches so I can tend the lines from the wheel as we go up in the locks. The staff all seem very friendly and helpful and there’s always one on the lock side to take lines so, actually, two on the boat is fine. Ailsa was to join us today  and after a couple of phone calls it seemed we would aim to meet her at Loch Lochy.

Going up Neptunes staircase was fun, we would exit one lock and motor slowly ahead to the next with Graham walking the headline and the lockkeeper walking the stern line. As we’d been a bit disorganised we’d omitted a breakfast earlier on and Graham found a cafe from whom he bought a couple of scones and coffee just as the rain started. Gongoozlers were aplenty some wanting to chat but most just gongoozling quietly as they do. It was a quiet run up with only us ascending and a couple of boats waiting for us before starting their descent. Once at the top we set off motoring gently trying hard to enjoy the spectacular scenery as the rain continued to do it’s best to prevent us. We passed a couple of bridges, I kept going on about a double cantilever bridge that I know is somewhere along the canal and have always admired as a beautiful bit of engineering but we’ve yet to come across it. Entering Loch Lochy there was a force 4 from astern so we got the genoa out and sailed to the Laggan locks at 6 knots giving the donkey a bit of a rest for a change. As we were going into the Lock, having wondered why no one had been answering our VHF calls, the Lock keeper asked us to monitor channel 74, we said we had been but then, upon examining the radio,  discovered that it had run out of charge. My spare one was in a similar state and Grahams also. A bit of incompetence to rely on hand helds, all of which were flat whilst not using the wired in radio down below. To be fair to me I struggle to hear the radio in the cabin when I’m on deck and the engine is running.

(above written this morning before setting off from the Laggan Lochs.)

Posting this as a trial before Graham leaves!

It didn’t work and he had a bus to catch so this maybe some time.

At the Laggan Locks Ailsa joined us having bussed up from Glasgow.

We had some Moroccan chicken from the freezer last night and although it was only, 2100 then went to bed as Graham and I were showing our age after little sleep the previous night.

This morning I had a shower which was refreshing but slightly annoying - I remember from when I bought Freya a similar experience at Crinan Lochs where the Canal authority had just put in a multi million pound shower and loo complex, the shower and loo are there, and they actually work which at Crinan wasn’t true of the majority of them, but , here comes a bit of a moan, there was no coat hook in the first shower I tried and only one in the second one which was the one that I used, but also no seat or shelf or chair to put ones clothes and towel whilst actually showering so you had to balance them on the one coat hook and loo and hope that they didn’t get too wet or, more seriously, fall into the loo. It’s as if they have a checklist with not enough on it; Shower, check, loo, check, mirror, check, right that’s fine that’s enough then.

Anyway that was all, sort of, fine and it was good to have a shave. Back on the boat I started my blog as the others emerged and then we had porridge for breakfast before setting off at about a quarter to nine for the swing bridge opening at 9. It’s lovely day today, much more holiday like and scenic, the sun is  shining the birds are singing and all is well. Loch Oich is beautiful although I was tinkering with the gearbox which had been behaving oddly and not stopping the shaft when sailing by going astern. Hopefully an adjustment and top up of oil will help. We may have seen an eagle altough it had a forked tail but was probably too big to be a Red Kite,  we’re all pretty hopeless at birdspotting!

There were then a couple of other locks and bridges, including my favourite double cantilever bridge which looks just like a suspension bridge but built on entirely different principles, which we were going to stop and have a look at but didn’t see it ‘til the last minute by. which time we had passed the berth which was before the swing bridge so we’ve decided to have a look on the way back.

We (Ailsa and I - Graham has just taken the bus back home) are now sitting in lovely sunshine at the top of the flight of Locks at Fort Augustus intending to ‘do’ Loch Ness tomorrow before returning to Laggan Lock on Thursday to meet up with Scott, the Bosun from the ship with his two youngsters to go to Inverness for Sunday.

Canals like marinas charge by boat length, probably on the principle that the bigger your boat the more you can afford. It occurred to me that, actually, for a canal, the bigger the boat, the  more water is displaced in each lock therefore the smaller the quantity of water is needed to elevate or lower at each evolution, so there is a a possible argument to say bigger boats should pay less.