An epic day travelling back to Duntaffnage with old sailing friend Berwin and his friend Dick yesterday. We chose to let the train take the strain for our journey from Wilmslow to Oban, on a bank holiday Sunday.  Highlights included:

·         Standing /sitting on floor from Crewe to Carlisle

·         Bus replacement from Carlisle to Glasgow

·         The slowest, smallest and oldest diesel train from Glasgow to Oban...which stops everywhere, even where there is no visible sign of life or indeed of any habitation at all.

The trip was however enlivened by Dick’s in depth commentary on all things rail, in view of his past career as a train driver. Bez and me are now well equipped for Mastermind, where our chosen specialist subject could be ‘ the relative merits of vacuum and pneumatic braking systems on Class 59 to Class 70 diesel engines’, or indeed many variations on a similar theme.

Not to worry, we eventually made it back to the boat in Dunstaffnage, and Dick had a baptism of fire negotiating the pitching pontoons in the dark, on a cold and windy evening.  Quickly followed by a wild night, with the boat leaning and pitching in a more or less full gale. We were both very surprised when Dick appeared for breakfast commenting on having been rocked to sleep and then having had a superb night’s sleep. Clearly a natural born sailor.

Fortunately the wind had died down a lot by mid morning, and even the sun made an appearance. So, after a fair amount of fiddling about with mooring lines so that we could exit the berth without bashing into a yacht which had parked right behind us, we were off to Corpach, the western entrance point for the Caledonian Canal. Our departure was timed so that we would be at the Corran Narrows on Loch Linnhe just as the tide turned to a north going stream. We sailed and motor sailed up the loch under genoa only, with the wind (around F4 most of the day) from dead astern.  A nice day’s sail and plenty of opportunity for Bez and Dick to look at the remnants of old bridges and railway lines on the shore.

We were through the canal sea lock and tied up in the basin by 1530. There then followed a happy hour of discussion with the lock keeper to sort out our payment for the canal transit. Turns out that everything agreed in this respect a couple of weeks ago in Crinnan had been lost or not received by the Caledonian Canal folks. Much phoning and sucking on pencils, but all finally sorted. Then just a case of writing out again everything previously written in Crinnan. A gentle suggestion to consider the possible benefits of computers to improve information sharing and documentation resulted in a the lock keeper pointing to the ‘Darth Vader box of tricks’ in the corner.....which was a brand new server rack in fetching smoked glass and many flashing LEDs. It was clearly working, but to whom or what it has busily communicating remains a mystery. The lock keeper was clearly not on speaking terms with it / him.

However, all was sorted and then the keepers helped us through the first couple of locks so that we could tie up at Bananvie at the foot of Neptune’ Staircase....a big flight of locks which would be our main task tomorrow. For tonight it just remained to buy some supplies and then visit the pub right next to our mooring...excellent beer and pies.

Bogdan’s Blog

Nice of them to come back, although I was having a good deep snooze, you might say hibernation, to avoid freezing to death. Thanks a lot guys for switching the heating off. I heard some people talking outside the boat the other day, very keen to take back control of this land.....perhaps if they do they will switch the heat back on and turn the shower off...

 Seems like a different crew have appeared but the routine of rushing about with various ropes seems unchanged, followed by hours drifting along watching the world go by...slowly. Fell back to sleep listening to Bez and Dick talk about a railway that may or may not have existed south of Ft William....or was it just a plan ..or maybe a dream.

This crew seems to be fascinated by the forward storage area under the floor, particularly late in the evening. I went down there looking for scorpions, but its just a big box full of glass bottles. I will have to watch carefully next time they take things from here. At least it is warm again inside the boat.