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!