Caledonian Canal
Awelina of Sweden
James Collier
Mon 1 Oct 2012 13:00
Getting into the Canal was quite hard as it was about F7 from the west, so we motored into a short chop for the mile or so to the sea lock at the entrance to the Caledonian Canal. Once inside it was much more peaceful and the rain mostly held off as the day improved. We shared the lock with a work boat and a charter yacht from the Isle of Skye, and indeed kept with them all that day.
We put the sails up in Loch Ness and tacked down the length of it in quite gusty and near gale-force conditions, but it was fun, and the spray fresh water! We tied up for the night at Fort Augustus, just below the staircase. The charter boat had stayed behind, but we were joined as it got dark by a large (55' +) Norwegian yacht called Skyline, en route to the Canaries.
Next morning the canal operators decided to let the work boat go first 'as it might have schedule to keep'. Since we'd shared the locks with it thus far and the crew were very competent and we'd had no trouble we said that we'd travel up the multi-lock 'staircase' with it. This proved a mistake: it turned out that this being Sunday, the crew had changed over on Saturday evening. The relief crew failed to wake on time, and were bleary eyed and 'morning-after' ish when they did emerge - so much for their schedule being more important than ours.
Once in the lock the work boat had no end of problems; first making fast in the wrong place and then forgetting to untie one of their lines and then, when it didn't move off as expected, applying full throttle and making huge wash and generally out of control, bashing the locks, the walls and then us, smashing our port navigation light fitting and bending the stainless pulpit. This was frightening since they weighed perhaps 100 tonnes to our 13. Bit once again the spares fairy came to our aid: the light we'd been given in Tromso was the exact replacement for the one smashed and so in the end no harm was done!
At the top of the staircase we let the workboat go on, stopping for a frothy coffee and to calm down, and thankfully never saw them again. We then sailed as much of the rest of the day as we could, and arrived at Gairlochy at the western end of loch Lochy at dusk. The Norwegian boat was already there, and slightly worried by our delay, fearing we'd had trouble whereas we were just being parsimonious with fuel. After supper we visited them: their boat is huge, amazingly modern, high tech and bauhaus, and very fast; a contrast to Awelina which is traditional and full of teak.
Next morning was spent going down Neptune's staircase to Corpach reach, much assisted by (and many thanks to) the crew of Skyline. We then tidied up and left Awelina there for the week.