The Caledonian Canal.

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 19^th 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 20^th 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 21^st 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 22^nd 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 22^nd 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 23^rd 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 24^th 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 25^th 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 26^th 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 27^th 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.

Frackers and being home without Bonzo

Executive Summary:

Our intrepid couple have arrived home after an epic circumnavigation of The Northern Isles (including Muckle Flugga, no less), to find their house and house sitters well but with no sign of their much-loved but deranged hybrid canine “guard dog” (aka “Bonzo.)

Essential background information:

Although, in many respects dog-like, Bonzo  is not your average German Shepherd – Rotweiler cross, lacking (as he does) normal canine intelligence. Bonzo has however, over the years, proved to be an effective guard dog and to be absent without leave on our return is most unusual.

Meanwhile:

Meanwhile, elsewhere in our county, there are frackers afoot.

Balcombe:

There appears to be a road-side competition in progress near Balcombe.  The competition is to see who can muster the biggest team.  The anti-frackers or the police?

Both sides appear to have similar tactics, these involve gathering on the roadside, talking and parking vehicles.  Every few hours a lorry drives out of (or into) the fracking site and both teams gather in the road to watch it.  The protesters team then try to stop the lorry and the police team try to stop the protesters from stopping the lorry.  As far as I can tell, once the lorry has got though, some of the police team give some of the protesters team a good telling off and in return the protesters either glue themselves together or shout at the police team.  Meanwhile, on sunny days an ice cream van sells ice cream (obviously) to the protesters. The ice cream van has a sign on its window “Against Fracking”.  It is not clear whether police officers eat ice cream or whether the van changes its sign to “In favour of fracking” when selling ice cream to the police.

The Anti-fracking protest

There is also a shop selling souvenirs and a campsite.

Both teams have dogs.

A dog van

Bonzo has a special dog detecting organ in his nose.

Has Bonzo joined the anti-frackers, or is romance in the air?

Inverness, Culloden and home

A quick update:  we’ve made it to Inverness and it’s been raining.

Inverness is in Scotland. 

We moored in Inverness Marina.

Sunset in Inverness Marina

Footloose moored next to us and did some cleaning.

Martin scrubbed our cockpit.

I had a short sleep.

Invigorated after my rest, it was time to get on with the manly task of fixing the engine. 

Unfortunately my efforts rendered a normally functioning engine unoperational.

 Fortunately Caley Marina was only a short bike ride away and rather like Stromness (see “Stromness etc.”) also had a very nice man who did welding and refused any payment for his work.

Saturday 3^rd August 2013

We hired a car and checked out Culloden. 

Reader(s) will remember that The Battle of Culloden on 16 April 1746 was the last pitched battle fought on British soil, until the invention of league football in 1894. We had a guided walk around a field by a strangely dressed actor, and later Martin was given a rifle to play with by the same man (now dressed in a kilt).  Martin did not wear a kilt, but a Danish man had to take off his shoes and run around shouting a lot. 

It reminded me of passport control at Gatwick.

After two days of sightseeing which included a very pleasant walk near the town of Cromarty, our happy team disbanded for the journey south.

Tuesday 6^th August

Home at last, but where is  Bonzo …………………….?

Erratum:  the author apologises unreservedly for the inadvertent opacity of the basking shark joke (16 July). This joke relies on the juxtaposition of a conceptual guitar case with a pun on the word “busking”.  Unfortunately the author was not aware, at the time of publication, that “busking” was spelt with a “u”. The author regrets any distress or confusion caused by this oversight.

Mousa to Inverness, Fog and Swinhoe’s Storm Petrel

To resume: our intrepid duo (my beloved and I) are locked in epic struggle with, not only the geography of  The British Isles, but  also with reality, the cosmos and, of course, my Use of English.

Friday 26^th July

The trip from Mousa to Fair Isle involved no more than three challenges:

1. Pull up anchor and leave anchorage without running into a newly-arrived cruise ship moored unobtrusively in the fog.
2. Sail (motor) through the choppy waters off Sumburgh Head (a breeze).
3. Find our way into North Haven (Fair Isle’s harbour) in thick fog …. This wasn’t entirely straightforward but we didn’t hit anything.

Meanwhile a rather odd looking seabird, obviously lost in the fog, had settled on our pushpit. It looked (to me) just like a Common Northern European Storm Petrel apart from the absence of white feathers on its rump … and it had a slightly unusual song.  Anyway, this bird was obviously lost but had miraculously hitched a lift from us in the fog.  Recognising immediately that this was Swinhoe’s Petrel and that it had therefore obviously flown (erroneously) all the way from Japan via South Africa to somewhere near Fair Isle, my beloved cooked it a nutrient-rich broth of sardine goulash laced with brandy. The bird tucked into this dish with obvious relish.

Next day we were delighted to hear that a solitary Swinhoe’s Petrel (now known locally as “Doreen”  .. for obvious reasons) had been spotted, trapped and ringed by expert birders at The Fair Isle Bird Observatory.  We understand that one of these expert birders had heard the unusual call of the bird later that night, having attracted it to his bird trap with the aid of his iPlayer  …on which he had a recording of the birdsong of the male of the species … Anyway, he had caught it, ringed it, and released it within minutes. We understand that he only scientific question left unanswered that evening was why this rare bird smelt of brandy.

Enough of Swinhoe’s Storm Petrel.  We (and it .. Doreen) had made it safely to Fair Isle.  (Much more of this exciting tale may one day be available online, but please don’t hold your breath).

 Fair Isle from the north light house

Saturday 27^th July

We had a nice walk followed by an excellent supper at the Bird Observatory.

We didn’t see Doreen again.

We like Fair Isle.

Sunday 28^th July

We set sail for Kirkwall.

Martin met us at the marina. This was nice.

Monday 29^th July.

Our wedding anniversary.

We visited the dig at Ness of Brodgar. Sir Baldric was also there, making a film.

Kirkwall also has a Lidl, so we went there. We didn’t see Baldric at Lidl.

Tuesday 30^th July

We sailed from Kirkwall to Holm Sound next to a Churchill Barrier on Orkney.

This was a nice sunny sail.  We weren’t racing but we did arrive before Footloose.

Wednesday 31^st July

To Wick.

Crossing from Kirkwall to Wick involves leaving The Orkney Islands and arriving in Scotland.  In between lies the infamous Pentland Firth.  This is the “roughest and most dangerous stretch of water in Europe” *.

We arrived in Wick without a drama.  This was a good thing.

Thursday 1^st August

Wick to Inverness is about 70 miles.  This is “much too far”.

“Passage Planning” is important and I think at this stage I should attempt explain something of this dark art to you, Dear Reader(s) and Ornithologist(s).

Passage Planning can be either broken down into a number of Logical Stages or you can simply set off and generally “see how it all goes”.  The RYA recommends the former method. 

These Logical Stages may be summarised by answering the following questions:

1.                  Where are we now?

2.                  Where are we going?

3.                  Why?

4.                  Why not?

… and so forth … I don’t want to get too technical (and risk upsetting much of the population of Fair Isle and the birding community in general, again .. not to mention most of my newly found readers and followers).

Another method of Passage Planning is the “Footloose method”.  This involves asking the skipper of Footloose, what time his leaving, frowning slightly at the reply, and then after a considered pause, agreeing with his plans.  This method is reliable and simple and avoids all that tedious messing about with tide tables, sextants, charts, maps, and meteorological calculations and simply relies on someone who has a track record of “knowing where their towel is”.

Anyway, having found a weather forecast that wasn’t entirely unsatisfactory we resolved to set off at 0400.  We duly set off at 0500, which was of course just as early.

The trip to Inverness had the following key features:

1.                  It pissed with rain.

2.                  It was windy.

3.                  There were waves.

4.                  It pissed with rain.

Eventually we arrived in Inverness.

Apart from the bus station, we really do like Inverness.

* Martin (personal communication, 2013)

To Mousa, eventually

Dear Reader(s), you will remember that our intrepid fivesome were, at the end of the previous episode, marooned in Balta, and that Balta is a windswept, foggy winderness whence tomorrow may not come. However, tomorrow did come and it was indeed, another day.  It was another windy and foggy day. 

My beloved cooked chicken. It was a special recipe called "Chicken Balta". 

Balta in the windy fog has little to recommend it, apart of course for the chicken.  And so on.

Next off, Burravoe.

Burravoe is nice.  The marina is entirely good and intact (unlikely Balta which is, to be frank, unintact).

Burravoe also has a fleet of four Albacores.  It was Regatta Day.  Amy and Tim were recruited to fill in for absent locals who, we understood, may have been delayed as a result of having to celebrate a wedding on the Isle of Yell.  Amy helmed for a very nice man who turned out to be The King of Yell.  Tim crewed for another very nice man, but he was not the King of Yell. The King of Yell came from Chichester. This was surprising but did have a reasonable and quite understandable explanation which I will not explain yet, or possibly ever.

Tim and Amy did well and won prizes. We all had fish and  chips.  We saw an otter. Burravoe was indeed, very nice.

Sunday, 21st July.

Off to Vidlin Voe.

Vidlin Voe, as well as being rather a pleasant sounding name, is a pleasant place, with a nice marina and very nice people.

Vidlin Voe is also on "The Mainland", making it convenient for taxis etc.

Magnus (Team H's personal driver) arrived early to pick up three-fifths of our intrepid team.

We said "Goodbye" and were sorry to see them go, but at least we knew they would be safe with Magnus.

(for an account of Team H's subsequent journey to Sussex, please download their report "Four Hundred and Eighty things to do at Sumburgh Airport in the fog" and its exceptionally successful sequel "Four Hundred and Ninety things to on a ferry in fog".

Monday, 22nd July.

To Out Skerries.

Out Skerries is probably the most friendly island in the world.

On the way to Out Skerries we saw a whale (forgive the non sequiter), Footloose were following but unfortunately missed it. (This idiom was constructed mainly for my pleasure and that of my son, who will probably pale at its subtle complexities).

We were met at the pier by the Harbour Master and a man on a bike.

Last year 47 sailing boats visited Out Skerries.

The pier is lined with black lorry tyres which themselves are covered with special black stuff.

Some Norwegians arrived from Bergen and went for a swim.

We went for two nice walks.  It was sunny.

There was man with a lawnmower mowing the airstrip.

Another man explained that the newly erected port hand marker in the south entrance to the harbour was in the wrong position and that, as a result, the ferry was refusing to use that entrance.

I wondered if this controversy had been specially engineered in Brussels to aid social cohesion.

Next morning the Norwegians had a pre-breakfast swim.  We didn't.

We left by the South entrance.

Footloose ran aground briefly.

Tuesday, 23 July.

We arrived in Lerwick.

Lerwick means "muddy bay" in Viking.

The marina was quite full.

Mainly Norwegians and Icelanders.  The Norwegians visit Lerwick as a "weekend trip” from Bergen which is only 48 hours away.  Because it is summer, weekends are much longer at these latitudes. The Norwegians like to go shopping and buy stainless steel cooking utensils. The Icelanders seem to sleep a lot.  Most people smile and are very friendly, especially when Ingela is taking their ropes.  Ingela wears shorts.

Whilst in Norway we went shopping (at the Co-op), we visited the museum and the castle and we went out to supper.  Next day we walked to the "Viking Bus Station" and had a nice ride in a bus to see Jarlshof which is a fascinating archaeological site.  The Vikings in Lerwick don't often go out with their traditional headgear fitted.  I found this disappointing.

Thursday, 25th July.

We motored towards Mousa.

We had an especially happy day.

We anchored off Mousa and Jean cooked chicken. We all enjoyed our Chicken Mousa.

It was a wobbly night at anchor.

Friday, 26th July.

We all went ashore and visited the Broch of Mousa.

This is a 2300 year old house, built in stone and 13 metres high.  It is best preserved Broch in the world and looks remarkably like a power station cooling tower.

One day I will post some photographs on this blog. Unfortunately Mousa, which is uninhabited doesn’t have broadband.

Here it is.

Northwards and beyond

Hello again, Dear Reader. Much has happened over these long weeks north of the internet ... a land without WIFI, penguins or even texts, a land of mystery, Vikings and fog, a land of intrigue and awe.  I could go on.

Today we are weather-bound in the "shelter" of the Balta Sound on Unst, considerably north of Watford.

Back to the plot, so far ... but briefly.

Sunday 1st July.

We went to Shapinsay and moored in Elwick Sound where only 800 years ago King Haakon stopped with his fleet of 100 longboats on his way to Largs to do battle (which he lost). How might history have been different if he had won, but as he didn't, I won't discuss this further (yet).

We flubbered ashore and walked along a very long straight road which wasn't built by the Romans.

Shapinsay.

We hired bikes and "did" Shapinsay. We inspected and enjoyed Burroughston Broch (100 BC).

Shapinsay is the preferred home of the otherwise extinct Orchadian Vole. However, we saw no voles.

We cycled across a sandy swamp but failed to find Shapinsay's second most important monument The Odin Stone (perhaps it had been nicked).

Home via the teashop for a Shapinsay Flapjack (comment still in construction).

A good day. (We didn't bother with Dog Geo Caves, for obvious reasons.)

Wednesday.

Peter and Sara arrived.  Much celebrating and they cooked us supper.

Thursday.

Tim arrived.  Further celebration.

We refuelled the boat at Lidl and stored the victuals under Tim's bed.

Friday 5th July.

Off to Otterswick on Sanday Island, our staging post for the big push to Fair Isle.

Otterwick was the scene of one of my ideas  .. it seemed very sensible at the time, at least.

For a number of very sound maritime reasons, we joined up 6 lengths of rope to connect Albatross to Footloose. For safety reasons I securely attached a fender (belonging to PB) to the middle of this line.  We had supper, the fender drifted off, the line got caught around our anchor and I had to drive the flubber most of the way to Norway. It all ended happily and I have avoided having too many good ideas since.

Saturday.

We sailed to Fair Isle.

We all like Fair Isle.

We had lovely walks.

I got attacked by Bonxies.

Tim got attacked by Bonxies.

We had an excellent supper at the Fair Isle Bird Observatory.

Two lovely days on Fair Isle.

8th July

We sailed to The Shetland Islands, anchoring in Bigton Wick on the east (left) side behind St Ninian's Island, beside the finest sand tombola in Europe.

We had nice walks.

9th July

A rough and roly ride to Scalloway.

Scalloway (pop. 1200) is Shetland’s second city and has a very nice shop that sells everything and a castle which we explored.

Next day.  Off to Walls.

Anchored in Walls, we were invited to join the  Round Foula Regatta, unfortunately we declined.  We later heard that only one of the five entrants finished, collecting the £500 first prize.

Jean, Tim and I all WENT FOR A RUN.

Thursday

Off to Papa Stour.

We anchored without seeing where we were anchoring because it was "slightly misty". Radar is a good thing.

Papa Stour has the "best caves, rock arches, tunnels and stuff in Europe".  It really does.  We had a wonderful walk together.  The Bonxies considered attacking Tim but thought better of it.

Saturday 13th July

To Aith where we eventually rafted out from Footloose on the harbour wall just in front of the lifeboat.

We plugged into the lifeboat hut's washing machine's electricity plug and filled up with water and food.

We had a wonderful tour of the lifeboat and the crew promised to come and rescue us at any time should the need arise.

We liked Aith, its sports centre, pier and shop.

We scrubbed and polished the boat and made ready for Linda and Amy's arrival, and they did.

15th July.

A foggy roly sail to Hamna Voe.

Many places in these islands are called "Hamna Voe" possibly because of limitations in the Vikings vocabulary which is based mainly around words for harbours, islands, inlets, islands and puffins.

Hamna Voe is "poorly charted" but very pleasant even in the mist.

PB explained to me the importance of proper chart work and passage planning.

I reaffirmed my belief in the sound practice of following closely behind anyone (eg. PB) who appears to know what they are doing.

16th July

Whale Firth

Complete absence of whales.

Did see a Basking Shark, wasn't collecting a lot in its guitar case.

17th July THE MUCKLE FLUGGA ROUNDING

No fog, a nice sunny day.

Team Tim and Linda went walking, Amy was on Footloose.

We rounded Muckle Flugga, Gannet colonies and all.

Very nice.

Arrived Balta Sound.

Picked up Linda and Tim and Amy.

Balta Sound Harbour has a pontoon but it is broken and sits on the harbour wall awaiting repair.

Balta exports talcum powder from Unst.

It will take a little more than talc to remedy the crews' collective dermatological and hygiene issues.

We opted to anchor off rather than enjoy the harbour.

Balta has the most northern pub in Greenland and the foggiest post box in the Faeroes, not to mention the only shop in Iceland.

Last night it got a bit windy.

We didn't drag our anchor.

I slept till 10.

Today I wrote blogs.

Tomorrow is another day.

Stromness to Westray to Kirkwall

We left Stromness on Thursday 27th June 2013 at 0650.
we motored out of the marina, past a grounded boat attached by a line to the Stromness Lifeboat.
Apparently there had been much excitement, a "Mayday" even, but now all looked calm, if shallow. Easily done, running aground, that is.

Out through the terrors of Hoy Sound (against the end of the flood), a pleasant reach northwards along the west coast of Mainland.
On, past Rousay, into Westray Sound; little wind now, but 4 knots of tide behind us.
Port towards and through Weatherness Sound (having carefully avoided Point of Dogs Bones, which sounded ghastly and looked shallow).
Port again up the north east coast of Westray and eventually into Pieroport.  Berthed Pieroport 1300.

Pieroport Marina.  Water, electricity, showers at the ferry terminal, friendly neighbours. What more could we ask for?
We walked into the village.
The main shop sells almost everything. So does the post office.

Supper on board.
We opted for the healthy option (mainly because neither the main shop now the post office sold anything unhealthy).
After supper we were invited over "for drinks" by our lovely neighbours on "Longbow" and also met our other lovely neighbours from "Rebel".
Our healthy supper was hugely improved by good company and some Single Malt.

Friday.
We walked to the north beach. Lovely white sand.  Jean spotted a Ringed Plover. We explored the castle.  We like castles.  Noltland Castle was well worth visiting. Back to the boat via the village.

Saturday 29th June.
The weather up here is somewhat variable.  You get, for example, wind then rain, then wind and rain, and so on, and at times sunshine.
In order to sure of getting to Kirkwall this year we decide to go for the "weather window" that appeared to exist that day.  This worked fine and we made it all the way to Kirkwall, burning hardly an ounce of diesel on the way. This time we went east of the Point of Dogs Bones and exited Fersness Bay south of Faray unscathed. On down the west coat of Shapinsay, past Vasa Point (inside the Skerry of Vasa  ... "Skerry" comes apparently from the old Viking word "skerry", which means "quite generally worrying especially when foggy in a longboat when the GPS is down".

Safe arrival in Kirkway.
Fish and Chips for supper.

Sunday.
Windy and wet, then sunny, etc.  Sunday Newspapers. Write blog.
Tomorrow, perhaps Shapinsay.
It depends on the weather.