A full account of what happened to Bonzo can wait for now …
perhaps indefinitely; enough to say that he was on duty again soon after John
took us back to Gatwick for the journey north.
Inverness Marina was, well
….. much the same as it was a fortnight ago.
Monday 19th August 2013
The very nice lockkeeper welcomed us at Clachnaharry Sea
Lock.
The very nice swing bridge operator kindly stopped the
traffic in central Inverness to let us through.
And so it went on, very nice people opening and closing lock
gates and swing bridges, taking our lines, smiling and being very calm and
reassuring as our boat motored slowly through Highland Scotland.
Past Caley Marine (where the very kind engineer had fixed my
water pump) and on into Loch Ness .. no less.
Loch Ness was windy and a little rough, so we retreated to
Dochgarroch where we dined on Chicken Casserole and slept.
Tuesday 20th August
Loch Ness Day.
As it was Loch Ness Day, we transited Loch Ness.
Loch Ness is big.
Loch Ness is about 20 miles long, a mile or two across and
about 900 foot deep. We didn’t see the monster, but he might have been down
there, somewhere. We motored past
Urquhart Castle and on up to Foyers.
Foyers lacked the customary red velvet carpet, revolving
door, mirrors and suited men selling over-priced programmes and was
pleasant. We anchored in the shelter of
the bay and enjoyed our lunch.
Next stop Fort Augustus.
It was a little crowded. We waited patiently for our turn to pass under
the swing bridge, and to transit its 5 locks with 6 gates. I had a brief technical discussion with the
skipper of a rather big blue boat. The big blue boat’s skipper’s daughter later
joined our crew for the afternoon and assisted us through the locks.
Later, at the top of this staircase of locks a very nice man
not only invited us to raft our boat to his (“Brandy of Troon”) for our
overnight stop, but even presented us each with a bottle of cold beer as we
passed him our ropes.
Waiting to go up.
Such is the happy life of a canal yachtsman.
Wednesday 21st August
Loch Oich Day
2 more lochs and a swing bridge.
The nice lady lockkeeper gave Jean a sticky gold star for
having her lifejacket on. I put mine on
and she gave me one too. I thought she
had a somewhat motherly charm.
The river and canal up to Loch Oich is beautiful. Loch Oich is beautiful.
We berthed on a convenient pontoon near the western end of
Loch Oich. We walked to the shop and
visited the Well of the Six Skulls. I
wont tell you the whole story, but the plot involves a Clan feud, six people
being decapitated, their heads being washed in the well (why?), a monument and
a gift shop. You can probably work out
the bits in between, yourself. I
bought a copy of the Guradian.
After lunch, we went for a walk back along Loch Oich and
enjoyed the views.
Thursday 22nd August
Loch Lochy and Neptune’s Staircase.
Loch Locky is very beautiful but I must protest about its
silly name.
It’s bad enough (for an Englishman) to have to cope with
locking through locks between lochs without having to lock into a loch called
“Loch Locky”. Worse still try
explaining all this over VHF channel 74 to the Gaelic lockkeeper who wants to
know quite where you are. I suspect that even Donald Rumsfeld, in his prime,
would have had some difficulty with this, although this may perhaps be yet
another unknown unknown.
A loch
Thursday 22nd was a nice hot and sunny day.
Possibly the first really warm day that our intrepid twosomes have experienced
this summer.
Jean put on her shorts.
Neptune’s Staircase was a breeze*.
* Neptune’s Staircase is, of course, the highest and
steepest set of continuous locks in Great Britain. What I thought was much more interesting however, is how the
lockkeepers look after the resident ducklings.
The problem revolves around the fact that although baby ducks can swim,
they can’t fly. If therefore, a baby duck is in a lock when the gates close it
will get locked down to the lock below, and thence to next, and so on. This can
lead to severe separation anxiety for both mother and baby duck and much
sighing by passing tourists. Anyway, as
the lock gates close, clever ducks swim frantically for the gate, leaving some of the less-clever ducklings behind, at this stage mother duck usually returns to
guide her errant babies to safety.
Unfortunately, slightly less-clever ducks (or more-clever ducklings)
then tend to follow mother duck back into the lock (whither she is going to
round up some of her children). Thus
chaos develops with ducks and ducklings rushing in and out of the lock between
its ever-closing gates. To the rescue,
the noble lockkeeper who uses leftover crumbs from his lunch (to entice the
duckling into one lock) and traditional Gaelic chants (to frighten others out
of the closing lock) whilst if, necessary, switching of the hydraulic gates
closing mechanism just in time to prevent any unfortunate (and irreversible)
crushing of baby ducks.
One of Neptune's locks.
Friday 23rd August
After a night moored with a view of Ben Nevis and, quite
remarkably, having seen barely a single midge all summer, we came down the last
double lock to Corpach, refuelled, thanked the lockkeeper and exited into the
saltwater of Upper Loch Linnhe.
Ben Nevis
We motored down Loch Linnhe
stopping for the night at Port Ramsay.
Port Ramsay is a gap behind a few rocks on the top end of Lismore
Island. It is well sheltered and very
pretty.
Saturday 24th August
To Oban.
We have now truly circumnavigated somewhere because, Dear
Reader, you will remember that we were here last winter with David.
Kerrera Marina hadn’t changed much. It was still quite
pleasant and the loos still needed a clean and the rubbish skips were still
full, but we like Kerrera Marina, and Oban has a Tescos.
We went to Tescos and also visited McCaig’s Tower (which is
even better from the inside and not made out of breeze blocks at all).
Sunday 25th August
On down to Loch Craignish and the Ardfern Yacht Centre.
The Ardfern Yacht Centre has the “biggest Chandlery in
Scotland” (possibly .. or possibly not).
It has pontoons so you can “Walk ashore” and the showers are free for berth holders. Electricity is £3.50 per night.
We had a nice walk.
It was a nice hot sunny day. We had chocolate ice creams.
Monday 26th August
To Gigha. We
anchored, flubbered ashore and had another nice walk.
A long time ago, King Harkon and his fleet of 100 longboats
rested here on their way to the Battle of Largs. King Harkon knew where his towel was.
Tuesday 27th August
Mull rounding day.
This involved passage planning.
Jean worked it out. I worked it
out. We got the same answer. I found
this reassuring.
It was foggy as we passed by the Mull of Kintyre so we had
to sing louder than usual.
Eventually
we arrived in Campbeltown which appears to be in Ireland.
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