Sailing across Scotland

A fine display of sweets in an Inverness store. I had to get some sherbet lemons.

We make landfall after our North Sea passage in Inverness and spend a couple of days cleaning off Helacious and enjoying the familiar sights and sounds of Scotland. We were back in the land of solid stone buildings, good bookstores, and reasonable priced restaurants.

After stocking up on smoked haddock, whisky and other Scottish delights we had been missing, we left the marina and motored over to the Clachnaharry sea lock for the start of the Caledonian canal. We had managed to nab one of the incredibly difficult to obtain one week licenses to transit the canal, they sold them like a lottery, only 5 released at 5pm on a Thursday! Fortunately we scored. We passed through the first two locks and tied up in Seaport marina next to Moondance. We celebrated the beginning of the voyage across Scotland with Moondance crew, Ellen and Frankie. The following day we took Helacious through the swing bridge and the first series of locks called Muirtown Flight, that would raise us up to the height of the canal.

Motoring along the canal was sublime, passing the fields and hamlets at a stately 4kt, waving at people who were walking the towpath or enjoying the water on kayaks. It was fantastic weather as well, which of course helped.

Before we knew it, we were at the entrance to Loch Ness

We quickly raised our sails and had a wonderful sail down the loch in near perfect wind. We had planned to stop at Urquhart castle for the night, however the wind was from the north and gusting quite strongly at this point, the loch is extremely deep just feet from shore and there was no safe place to anchor without being blown onto the rocks. We had to satisfy with a fly by and sail on south.

Half way down the loch, off the southern shore we discovered the perfect anchorage. It was not indicated on any of the charts we had. Just south of Foyers Bay there is a gravel ridge about 300ft from shore that was about 20ft deep, with water all around being 100ft or more. We set the anchor and watched the fog roll down the loch.

The next morning was windless and the fog slowly cleared as we motored the rest of the way down Loch Ness to Fort Augustus.

Fort Augustus is a lovely town built up along the banks of the canal at the southern end of Loch Ness. We tied up to the pontoon and took a look around town. The weather forecast and ominous clouds indicated rain, but we were determined to stretch our legs, so we set off for a hike to get a nice view back down the loch.

On our hike we met a lovely young German student, Antje, who we started chatting with. She was hiking by herself across Scotland, camping rough as she travelled. The stormy skies and gloomy forecast lead us to invite her onboard, at least for dinner. She was such good company she stayed with us two nights. That evening we had a party onboard Helacious along with the Moondance crew, showing off our mackerel smoking skills and the next day set off down the canal with Moondance close behind.

We stopped in Loch Oich and tied up to the sketchy pontoon allowing us to explore Invergary Castle and the grounds of the old hotel. The castle was in pretty bad shape, merely a propped up facade, but the mature woodland around and the old buildings of the hotel made the stop worthwhile. The evening was spent on Moondance, drinking G&T and playing guitar.

The next morning Antje jumped ship to Moondance who were pressing on through to the end of the canal, while we wanted to enjoy the countryside a little more and go for a good hike. We parted ways at Laggan at the head of Loch Lochy, the highest point on the transit, where we tied up and spent a quiet evening onboard.

The next morning the skies were clear and we had wonderful weather for our hike up Ben Tee, at 2966ft, it was almost a munro, so good training for our future family gathering in September.

The highlands begin here, looking north from Ben Tee.

Loch Lochy was the last loch in the Caledonian canal, from here it was canal all the way to the top of Neptunes Staircase at the western end of the canal in the small town of Banavie where there were 9 locks in series named Neptunes Staircase, followed by the final sea lock at Corpach. We left the Caledonian canal just as the heavens opened and we were treated to near white out conditions on our sail south toward Oban and a rendevouz with Supertramp.

The zen like process of descending in a lock, Neptunes Staircase, Caledonian canal.