After a month's 'rest', doing other things, the next part of the voyage starts with a trip down the Caledonian Canal to Corpach  ( 56:50.50N, 005:07.40W). Moondog has been tied up safely in Inverness Marina since our arrival from Norway in late July, and has been well tended by the marina.....the service here has been outstanding.

 

The crew for this short trip down the canal is my wife Helen, Avis ( who had crewed in Sweden) and her husband, Nigel. The stakes for this simple trip were high, since neither Helen or Nigel are terribly keen sailors, due to fear of seasickness and, in the case of Helen, a healthy scepticsm of my ability to skipper a boat. This goes back to our first outing on the water before we were married, during which I managed to lose both oars of our hired rowing boat on the Thames, resulting in us being rescued by a local rowing club......

 

Against this background I had reassured Helen and Nigel that this would just be a motor cruise down the canal, conveniently ignoring the details of Loch Ness and Loch Lochy, which could easily kick up an exciting chop in a good NE or SW wind. In view of the good weather we had for much of our time in Scandinavia I thought we might be overdue for some good old Scottish rain and wind, and I was not entirely sure what Plan B was going to be if the weather let us down.

 

The logistics of getting everyone up to Inverness, with cars in the right place for Helen and Nigel's return at the end of the canal, was an interesting challenge, but all went well and we set off from Inverness Marina on a still morning on Wednesday 1 Sept. Since we had seen dolphins and otters on our way down Inverness Firth coming into Inverness, I decided to first go back out into the Firth to see if they were still there.They were not. However, Helen's deep seated views on my seafaring abilities received a large boost as we passed under the Kessock Bridge out into the Firth. As I engaged the autopilot to hold our course whilst I helped out with fenders etc, the boat shot off at about 90 degrees to starboard of our course. This is not something you can hide from a worried crew, particularly when it happens so quickly it nearly topples them into the sea. I had no idea what was wrong, but reassured everyone that the auto pilot just needed re calibrating after its long rest in the marina, and that it would be good to get some helming practice in, so the voyage continued absent autopilot.

 

Having drawn a blank on wildlife, it was back under the bridge and into the Caledonian Canal sea lock at Clachnaharry, and thus into the canal. We quickly got the hang of navigating the locks, particularly since they were all manned by British Waterways staff who must have seen crews make every mistake possible, and they had long ago worked out a low stress solution to each crisis. The main challenge of course was ensuring we had lots of fenders out to avoid scratching the hull, and we had no major problems with that.

 

Of equal interest to the locks, were the bridges that had to be lifted, swung or retracted to allow us to pass. Since we were sailors for these few days,we took a perverse pleasure in causing so much havoc to traffic on various roads, as lights flashed and bridges moved. Our particular favourite was the A82, which Nigel reckons we interupted three times on our travels. This bridge fetish got off to a great start as we cleared the first lock at Clachnaharry, since bridge number 1 was a railway bridge, although not unreasonably we had to wait for the train to pass......

 

Day1 on the canal ended with us mooring at Dochgarroch, just before the entrance to Loch Ness. Weather was still clear and still , and this was to remain with us for the whole canal trip. We had an interesting meal that evening in the local post office, which doubled as a restaurant in the evening ; quite odd eating your meal in front of the counter at which you would buy stamps in the day.

 

Day2 saw us off down Loch Ness on a beautiful sunny and calm morning, with early morning mist clearing from the hills. To add to the perfect scene we passed Vic 32, the last remaining Clyde Puffer, making its way up the Loch. These old steamers used to deliver cargoes all around the Western Isles, and Vic 32 looked splendid chugging along ; it also had that wonderful steam engine smell of coal/ oil/steam as she passed, which makes a change from the acrid smell of unburnt diesel when passing modern ships.

 

Since there is no current to speak of in Loch Ness, this was the time to re calibrate the log ( basically the speedometer), and that was done very quickly by aligning it with the speed reading from the gps. And then....how to fix the problem with the autopilot ? It was still sending us way off course and any hope of it sorting itself out was clearly in vain. I was about to dive into the ( incomprehensible ) manuals when, for no particular reason apart from a desire to delay this next step, I  looked in the locker where the electronic compass sensor was located. I saw that this locker had a lot more stuff in it than on our previous trips, and in particular it had a couple of 6 can packs of Carlsberg next to the sensor. Ahah, we had a 'beer deviation' on the compass with all these metal cans ! It was too early to drink the problem away, so we just restowed all the cans well away from the compass sensor, and voila, a fully functioning autopilot again ! We now know to only buy bottled beer !

 

Loch Ness really was at its best, and no monster of course, and we were soon in Fort Augustus ,working our way up its flight of locks, ably assisted by the Canal lock keepers, which continued to take most of the effort out of the process. We then managed to get through Loch Oich that afternoon, to moor up at Laggan Bridge.

 

The next day, 3 Sept, saw us starting off as soon as the canal opened for business at 8.30am, through Laggan bridge and locks , and out into Loch Lochy on a glorious still morning. We motored down the Loch, seeing no one else apart from a few canoeists.Then it was through a couple of locks and bridges at Gairlochy and onto Neptunes Staircase ; an impressive flight of 7 locks down to sea level, more or less. The views of Ben Nevis from the top of the locks is fantastic, particularly in the weather we were enjoying. The locks themselves would have been daunting without the canal staff to work them. It was particularly easy for me as skipper ; I just steered the boat as my crew dragged it through on the mooring lines. A very restful afternoon !

 

After Neptune's Staircase it was just a few minutes to Corpach Basin next to the final sea lock, where we moored for the night and met up with John, who was joining us here. Altogether, we probably could not have wished for better weather for this trip through the canal, coupled with the fact that it was practically deserted, being just after the summer season. A great , short trip.