Grand Slam

Thurs 29th May - Banavie to Dunstaffnage

 It was still rather damp and soggy waking up to our last day in the canal and an early start at that – 8 o'clock to start the 2 hr decent through the Banavie locks. Wooden spoon for the day has to go to Ant (or was it Dec?) in the fishing boat in front. The pair of plonkers had bought the boat on the east coast and were taking back to Portree. A one stage the decending a lock the rear line got caught on the cleat and the water went done but the boat didnt. Ant managed to kick it off just in time. 2 locks later the same thing happened but it was beyond kicking off. Out came the knife (more like a six foot broadsword) and saved the boat from suspending itself six foot out the water.

We reached Corpach lock and refueled and then out into the sea around midday. Target for the night was to get to Loch Aline and the sun made its first appearance as we got through the Corran narrows. 6 hours later in Loch Aline it was a stunning evening with no wind and wall to wall blue sky. Tom and Andy went off in the dinghy to do some exploring – good to see the outboard is still working. Found Tennison's waterfall and a few fossils.

Don't ask!

Friday morning and still wall to wall sunshine and no wind – so a motor sail up to Tobermoray. The wind picked up to 15knts as we got there but as it was bang on the nose again we declined to put the sails up. It is amazing how nice the west coast is when the sun comes out!

Mull in the sunshine

We found a mooring – not difficult as all 24 visitors moorings were free. The chain on ours however was very rusty – watch out if you go there! Pam and I went to eat in Javiers, the restaurant over the bar by the end of the pier. We'd been there a couple of years ago and it was excellent. It was good again this time although the range of seafood was a bit more restricted. Well worth a visit if you like seafood. It was then over to the Mishnish to met up with the boys and far too much to drink.

Tom watching the world go by - well an old boat anyway!

Getting up on Saturday morning was a struggle and a couple of Panadol later we were off down to Dunstaffnage. Wall to wall blue sky again and sailing in tee shirt and shorts. Even Pam was feeling warm. There was no wind when we left but the sea breeze picked up as for the day before but it was dead behind us. We put up the assymetric but then the wind died and it was back to motoring. By the time we were passed the bottom of Lorne, it picked up again and we were able to broad reach over to the marina.

So that's the first leg of the trip down south completed. The boat is being lifted out here on Monday to antifoul it and put some new anodes on ready for the rest of the journey south. The weather since thursday has been absolutely brilliant so here's hoping it will keep this way until next weekend when we are back. Hope also we get wind on something on other than the nose or dead downwind which isn't conducive to easy sailing.

Wed 28th May - Fort Augustus to Banavie

The restaurant in the Bothy was heaving again so a good job we ate on the boat. A group of 27 women turned up along with 2 men. Probably a Christian science group! Tom declined to go and chat them up.

We left Fort Augustus reasonably early at 9 ish heading for Corpach. It had gone cloudy and the rain started around 10 O'clock – set in for the day. Pretty uneventful other than the constant radio traffic between Laggan locks and Laggan Bridge.

Took a few photos in the Lock – including a lesser spotted golden retriever barking at a green balloon floating in the lock.

We started the wooden spoon award for the day and the first 3 nominations were:

• Tom for abandoning the boat in Cullochy loch to board a motor boat with 2 young ladies on board. We had gone in the lock 2^nd on our side and the cruiser came in rather too near us. Tom jumped on board to help them tie up to the boat on the other side and then became stranded. They didn't even offer him a cup of tea! .....and he escaped back before I could take a photo.

• Andy F, for his demonstrations of how not to throw a rope although the old guy on the lock didn't do us any favours.

• Yours truly for deciding the boat was dirty motoring down Loch Lochy at 6 knots and throwing a bucket overboard to pick up some water. The force knocked me onto the throttle, accelerating the boat to warp speed and nearly saw me pulled out of the boat.

And the award goes to .......me! Even I voted for that one.

We're now at the top of the locks at Banavie and it's still raining. My boots were leaking although it might have something to do with the hose pipe used to wash the deck down. Quite a wet day all in all. They wouldn't let us stay in the basin at Corpach so we will have an 8 O'clock start tomorrow to get down for mid day when we can get out of the canal and get an ebb tide to take us through the Corran narrows.

We're off to the Moorings pub for a meal tonight – which served a mean curry when we tried it last year.

Tuesday 27th May -Seaport to Fort Augustus

Tuesday 27th May. After a rather long evening session in the Clacknaharry Inn 
drinking Dark Island and then one or two wee drams back on the boat with Rick 
and Connie from Calaloo it was a leisurely start o tuesday morning. A few panadol 
for Andy and we were off up the Muirton locks with breakfast on the way. The wind 
was blowing a good 20knts which made it interesting going through the locks but 
it was a nice sunny day as a result of the high pressure sitting over northern 
Scotland and giving us good weather and the south of England a rough time (ha 
ha for once!!)

Loch Ness was a great sail. With 25knts of wind right behind us, it wasn't a day 
for the assymetric but after some struggle we polled out the Genny and off we went. 
Tom was pleased with the top speed of trip so far with a 9.2 knts surfing down a wave. 

At around quarter to three we heard it! Just about a mile short of Fort Augustus 
- “Laggan locks, this is Laggan bridge......”. This is an “in” joke from a couple 
of years ago so if you don't know then bad luck! ....and there were at least 5 
helicopters! Not much in the way of wildlife. No eagles, kingfishers 
or monsters. Just the odd duck – and a very odd looking one in seaport marina.

The plan was to stop at the bottom of the Fort Augustus locks for the night but 
as the fetch down the lock was so bad we decided to go up through them before 
they closed for the night. Just enough room at the top of the flight but the 
shower block was not as nice. Reasonable mooring for the night.

The pressure is dropping so it looks like the depression down south is coming 
further north so probably not as nice weather tomorrow. It wasn't quite warm 
enough to bar-b-que the steaks Pam had bought from the butcher by the locks so 
Tom grilled them on the cooker. It's off down the “Bothy” pub tonight for some 
more good beer and to see if I can find an internet connection to upload these 
notes – which obviously I didn't as I am so late posting them!

Monday 26th May - Lossie to Seaport Marina

Monday 26th May. After a nice evening in Lossie, we made an early start (7 ish)
 to escape from the harbour on a dropping tide. The pilot book says that access
 is HW +/-4 and despite all the dredging last year it seems no better. The wind
 was also NE so there was a fair bit of swell across the entrance. We measured
 1.4 m under the keel so it wasn't that bad.

The wind however had dropped to around 5-6 knots and we needed to be down to 
the canal by mid afternoon so we motored again. The wind remained fairly light
 all the way until we got to Fort George so it was the engine all the way. When 
it did pick up, we couldn't be bothered to put up the main and in all the 
excitement (or lack of it) we forgot to unroll the head sail with the wind
 still behind us. 

Fort George saw the usual crowd of people on the other side looking for 
dolphins but today there were none in sight. Quite a few seals basking on 
the beach but not a lot of activity in the water.

View of the Kessock Bridge
 

Under the Kessock bridge and then round in circles for half an hour until the 
clacknaharry sea lock was ready for us. The wind had picked up to 20 knots on
 the beam going into the lock so some clever springing was necessary to get 
ourselves out. 

In Seaport Marina we found Rick and Connie from Calaloo - a US boat which 
drifted over the Atlantic last summer to London and was on the way up the 
east coast, through the canal and then down to Spain. We had met Rick and
 Connie at the dinghy naming party last week and had arranged to see them up 
here. Andy's just cooked a nice chilli and it's off to the Clacknaharry Inn for
 a few beers ahead of tomorrows start of our journey through the Cally canal.


You can just about make out the scottish flag on Grand Slam above. Rick had
put up a sizeable US flag so we couldn't be outdone!
 

We're off!

 

At last we're away. We left Port Edgar on a rather windy evening heading north
 for Inverness and on to Oban on the first leg of the trip down to Portugal. 
The wind was blowing a good 25 knots under the bridges - bang on the nose and
 the forecast was F4-5 NE which didn't sound too good. We knew however that 
delaying leaving we were likely to suffer stronger winds so it was now or 
never. We motored for the first 4 hours and felt a little easier when Forth 
Coastguard told us there was only 10 knots of wind at Fife Ness. With a 
rather grey evening we saw our last view of the bridges for a while.



By midnight we were round Fife Ness and the wind swung to NNE keeping it 
bang on the nose although it did drop to 10 knots as predicted. At least 
now we were able to get the main up and motor sail a while. The boat was 
fully crewed by Andys - well to be more exact, half the crew were Andys. 
Tom and Andy had joined us for the trip round to Oban - not quite the 
hair-raising experience that Andy's photo shows.



We managed to sail for around 6 hours but progress was slow beating into 
the wind and waves so reluctantly decided to go back to motor sailing to 
try and get round Rattray head before midnight. We just managed it and 
sailed into Lossiemouth around six-ish on Sunday morning. Time then for 
a few beers and a couple of wee drams before crashing out. It was Tom's 
first long sail (36 hours) but a great experience.Not really a lot to 
report about the trip except it would have been interesting going into 
Lossie with the mainsail up if Tom hadnt reminded me to get it down. 
No speed records set today (or yesterday) - maybe we can get a chance 
for some exciting sailing soon.



Sunday evening we sampled the buffet in the local Chinese "Charlie Chan's " 
excellent food for a buffet. Everyone stuffed themselves ready for an early 
morning start to get out of Lossie before the tide dropped too much. We saw 
Sherkin and Elise in the harbour but no sign of Stuart who we had met on 
previous years North Sea races. 

Next leg, down to Inverness and into the canal.