The Caledonian Canal

After a day in Inverness a trip to the chandlers to pick up some charts and pilot books and the supermarket to stock up we set off on an overcast morning into the canal.

The Clachnaharry sea lock into the canal is only about 20 minutes from Inverness Marina but the tides around the entrance and under the bridge cannot be ignored even over this short distance; equally the lock will not open at low water so we left the marina at about 8am. Locks are not something we do a lot of although we have been through quite a lot in Holland and of course there is are the locks at Shotley and Ipswich so we are not complete novices. The lock keeper at the sea lock (and indeed all of the lock keepers along the canal) was very helpful taking our lines as we entered the lock and releasing them once the locking process was complete.

Once we were in the lock and had paid for our license we had a short wait for the ScotRail train to cross the bridge before we were off straight into our second lock and then through into Seaport Marina. We tied up in the marina and as the weather was looking good treated ourselves to a day off in the sunshine and a walk into Inverness to do the “tourist” thing which we hadn't done the day before.

The following day was our first ever flight of locks at Muirtown, this is where you move through one lock after another - in this case 4 locks rising higher with each lock. The sun was shining and we were the only boat going through the locks the lock keeper was really helpful taking our lines and walking us through each lock. It was beautiful. 

We chugged quietly along the canal spotting birds and watching a large grey heron fishing finally believing our summer had arrived! After a nice lunch in the sunshine we headed into Loch Ness with the hope of finding an overnight stop. Sadly we couldn't find anywhere to stop for the night. The advertised mooring bouys were not there and we were turned away from a pier being told that is was no longer available for mooring as it was now private property! We did try to anchor but we couldn't get the anchor to hold and the problem with the Loch was that the edges are so steep that in a matter of 2m the depth can go from 4m to 20m so a slight drag of the anchor could see you floating free very quickly. That would not make for a good night’s sleep! The one anchorage that is useful in Urqhart bay was not suitable on the night we were there because the wind had picked up and there was a nasty chop in the bay so not ideal for a comfortable night! To add to that at about 4pm the mist came down and the rain started so plans were abandoned and we motored into Fort Augustus.

We ended up staying at Fort Augustus longer than intended as a big low pressure passed over bringing with it F7/8 winds - not the ideal conditions to be moving to higher ground through a flight of locks. Fort Augustus itself didn't prove to be a particularly relaxing place - coach loads of tourists arrived on a daily basis trekking along the side of the moored boats to the edge of Loch Ness to take photos and then back along the boats many of them attempting to use our boats as props in their photos. So we spent the days either shooing tourists away from our boat or fending off hired motor cruisers who were being blown sideways in the very strong winds. Locking up was also a bit of a challenge as lots of folks gather around the locks taking photos of the boats moving up but they also get in the way not realising that the rope you are pulling has a boat attached to the end of it and you cant wait for them to take their photo or walk around them! Luckily the lock keepers are quite firm and move them along!

We moved on through the canal marvelling at the beauty of the Great Glen even in cold wet weather! We also felt quite privileged at having the opportunity to visit this beautiful area. The final challenge of the canal is at Banavie close to Fort William at the top of a flight of 8 locks called Neptunes Staircase! Descending this staircase takes about 2 hours and on the day we went down it started to rain just as we slipped our lines and carried on pouring for the next 6 hours! This wasn't gentle rain but heavy and persistent so that by the time we arrived at Corpach basin where we had negotiated an overnight stay,  we were completely soaked. This wasn't really a problem but getting our wet oilskins dry was quite a challenge and meant that we had dripping oilies on board all night. We realised it was bad rain when we spotted a very damp bird pressed up against one of the cabin windows. We watched it and realised that it couldn't take off because it was so wet. It turned out to be a small female swallow so we braved the rain and picked it up in an old cloth (it made no effort to escape) and put it under a hedge for shelter, by the time we got it to the hedge it was starting to perk up presumably because the cloth was drying it off a bit! We did check the following morning and there was no swallow under the hedge and also no pile of feathers so we hope that she managed to fly away and not become an easy dinner for a passing fox or cat!

The whole canal had been an interesting experience but I was keen to get back out to sea and shake the sails out again.