Dunstaffnage to Caledonian Canal

On the Sunday evening we had the fun of meeting Andrew and Linda from the train at Oban. The word train is a rather overblown way of describing two elderly carriages that wheeze their way to Oban stopping at every molehill en route. Luckily they made it to Oban only a few minutes late.

The planned early departure on Monday morning was a touch delayed. The Marina gives you a key for access the entrance gate and charges you a £20 deposit too. Of course, an early departure is hard if you want to get your £20 back (funnily enough, as non-working types, we did). It gets even harder when the office doesn’t open until 8:30 and when they open they cannot get the PC working and so cannot process the queue of people. Even harder when a Scandinavian man pushes past the queue and needs a taxi to the hospital urgently as he is bleeding gently. All very slow and painful. Finally the captain got a refund and of course had no key fob any more. He diligently waited outside the entrance gate for the crew to let him in. And he waited. Finally there was someone else coming up the pontoon who let him in – only to discover that the power was off and the gate lock was inoperative anyway…. Great start to the day.

It really perked up though. Leaving Dunstaffange in no wind and sun allowed breakfast on the flybridge / boatdeck:

It also allowed Patrick a huge cwtch and his first open air trip ever. He is so spoilt:

Travelling up the Lynn of Lorne was lovely. Sun and scenery in equal measure:

This turns into Loch Linnhe which leads all the way to Corpach, near Fort William, where the lock that takes you into the Caledonian Canal is situated. Heading up the Loch was great and around half way, there is the cutest little lighthouse at Corran narrows:

Seeing a narrow bit and buoys, Patrick got a touch nervous and donned a lifejacket whilst studying the chart. For some reason he didn’t trust Andrew’s navigation:

We had to hold off the Corpach sea lock briefly and were a touch upset that the plastic navy boat behind us called the lock on the radio and referred to us as the small cruiser ahead of them. Cheek – we help pay their salaries (only a tiny bit now of course).

In the lock they exhibited some very bad behaviour by keeping their smelly engines running – the view and excitement of entering the Caledonian Canal made it all worthwhile though:

We were cheered up by the canal staff who referred to us when they called each other on the radio as “the large private motor boat”. Up yours the Navy….

Amazingly we were in time to scale the Banavie locks – a flight of 7 referred to as Neptune’s staircase. Here is what Neptune had to scale:

As this flight also involves a road and railway bridge, it was a busy time. We got slightly delayed as an emergency ambulance had been over the road bridge and they had to wait for it to return or to get the “all clear” message. We were so happy that Andrew and Linda were on board; experienced boaters who were managing us through the locks (all 10 of them from Corpach to Banavie). Of course we are too heavy (40 tons) to pull between the chambers and so each time it meant firing up the engine and motoring the 180 foot or so into the next lock chamber. Tired but pretty happy we stopped on a mooring just above the flight of locks and fell onto fizzy stuff and food. Horrid life. The views from the mooring were great – the lock flight, mountains with snow on them still and a few other moored craft. A truly great day ended here: