Round Britain for the RNLI Blog

There is a possible gap in this succession of low pressure systems on Sunday with winds of F2-3 but I am not hugely hopeful. There has been a steady north or northeasterly for days now and that will, no doubt, have built up the sea coming in off the North Sea and although the wind might be OK on Sunday the sea might not. Monday looks awful too with yet another low and frontal system.

As usual, more daily on the weather update..

Today started out wet and it just got wetter and wetter! I had an 8.30 appointment with Martin Douglas of the Loch Ness lifeboat station to show me the boat and to get some pics for the RNLI and for this web site. He gave me a thorough tour of the boat and we had a photo session (see pics). Martin has been a wonderful host for me when there and I would like to thank him for his efforts. The lifeboat station there has only recently been taken over from the coastguard and so they have had a lot of work getting the station up to date with RNLI equipment and procedures and I have to say that as a visitor it looks to me that they have all done a fantastic job. Crew is still being trained and there are still a few things to do but on the whole it is up and running.

Like I said, the weather has been wet today and leaving the marina I couldn’t see the other side of Loch Ness only a mile away but there was enough visibility for me to make good progress into the canal section at the north end and through the remaining locks to Inverness. At Dochgarroch Lock I called on the radio to the lockkeeper and didn’t get a reply so I put the boat on the holding pontoon and went in search… nothing… not a soul anywhere. This is a warning to anyone transiting the canal… when the lockkeepers go to lunch everything stops! It was a welcome chance for me to make a spot of lunch for myself and sit and relax listening to the test match on the radio .

The final set of locks at Muirtown resulted in another delay of an hour while we waited for a fishing boat to get to the lock so we could all lock down together. This final "staircase" needed me to stand on the lockside and walk the boat between locks and also to stand there while the boat descended… while it was raining. I was soaked!

At the bottom I entered my berth in Seaport marina to be met by Russell from Gael Force Chandlery who I had requested to meet me to make a small adjustment to where the fuel line went into the engine. That was quickly done so then off to the shower… great!

I write this from the boat in the pouring rain with the wind blowing the boat around on the pontoon in Seaport Marina, Inverness and it is with a degree of mixed feelings that I report that the Caledonian Canal leg is at an end.

On the one hand I am sorry to leave the relative peacefulness of the canal. On the whole it has been a wonderful few days and I highly recommend it to any boater or non-boater alike whether in your own boat or a hired one. On the other hand I am glad that I now have the chance to push on with the event and to get on with some more fundraising. So I am collecting at the Eastgate Centre in Inverness tomorrow and meeting up with the Mother of my good friend Anne. This is the same Anne that has the uncle in Fort William… needless to say she is a scot and proud of it.

So, all that remains of the canal is for me to make it the mile or so to the sea lock and through the final lock. I am not sure when… it all depends on  - you guessed it - the weather!

Paul is on a berth in Seaport Marina, Inverness. Judging from the weather, he hopes that Sunday may be suitable for his leg to Whitehills.

Well at last I can report that the house is done - for now anyway! It looks smashing with the new carpet down so I’m very pleased. Even our complicated bath is behaving itself!

Yesterday I returned Colin and Lynne’s computer to them and connected it up for them. They still have no telephone line in their new house (BT being incompetent) so no web yet but one day maybe! And then last night I went out with our friend Anne to see "Relatively Speaking" by Alan Ayckbourn. It’s on at Theatre Royal Plymouth and includes Peter Bowles and Diane Fletcher in the cast. Very very funny. I’ve never seen a bad Ayckbourn - his legacy to the Theatre is enormous and let’s hope he writes a few more now he is to step down as artistic director of Scarborough’s Stephen Joseph Theatre. His work is sometimes regarded as trivial and not proper theatre but as far as I am concerned, if he makes me roll about in the aisles then that’s fine by me!

Today my head dictates a quiet day, but since it is the start of the first test against South Africa, I shan’t be regretting that I want to sit all day! This morning though I have had a recorded interview with Glenn Moir at Waves Radio in Peterhead, which will be broadcast on Sunday. Not a clue what I said - hope it was OK:)

Although the lockkeepers start work at 8am they had a lot more boats at the bottom of the staircase wanting to come up than at the top wanting to go down and so they started locking up first and they continue locking up until they run out of boats and so there was a wait to get down. I went to get a cup of coffee from one of the restaurants and watched the boats locking up. There was a couple with a yacht with the man holding the stern rope and the woman holding the bow rope and the woman was having trouble . I offered to help and she accepted my offer immediately so along with the man I walked their boat into the next lock. It turned out that she was pulling the boat from the front so I suggested that she let her husband do the pulling from the back and she does the steering from the front so she wouldn’t have to do any hard pulling. I watched them do the next two locks with great success and they were both hugely grateful. They too were going round Britain but they were retired and they was doing it just for themselves and had no schedule at all.

Eventually it was time for locking down. I shared the lock with a 100ft barge that provides accommodation for 12 occupants on an activity holiday whilst transiting the canal. This barge was 130 tonnes and had no special equipment and yet they had no trouble mooring and going through the locks.

At the bottom I entered Loch Ness and got a rude introduction to the largest body of fresh water in the UK. The wind was up at F4-5 and the loch had waves. OK, they were only 2-3ft but having no tides and no swell they were very short and it made for an uncomfortable ride. I thought while I was on Loch Ness that I would have my chartplotter on sonar and so all the way up the loch I was looking out for the monster. Believe it or not I didn’t see anything that could have been Nessie but it was fun watching the depths at over 200m. You know that there is more fresh water in Loch Ness, which is 22 miles long one mile wide and 200m deep, than in all the lakes and reservoirs in the UK! Incredible.

I was “buzzed” by no fewer than a fighter and two Hercules aircraft on the loch.

About two thirds up the loch on the north shore is Drumnadrochit marina and Urquart Castle… the widest point on the loch. The little marina has no toilets or showers but offered good shelter and is a convenient stopping point on the loch. It is also the location of the RNLI’s very latest lifeboat station and I was welcomed on my arrival by Martin Douglas, volunteer crew and press officer for the station. After tieing up he gave me a super tour of the station and then took me back to his house for a tasty meal of homemade chowder. I made use of his broadband to upload photos. Thanks Martin.

Back at the boat I settled down for the night but it wasn’t a quiet one. The marina offers complete shelter except in northeasterlies and that is what we had so all night the boat rocked and water slapped making it a restless night. I shouldn’t complain… the weather has been bad on this trip as you know but I have not had a rocky night until now. Not at all bad.

Next day will see me descending the rest of the locks and then heading for Seaport Marina where I will be staying at least 2 or 3 nights. I have some collecting arranged for Friday and I have a couple of small repairs to make on the boat and engine. More on that later.

Today has been quiet and relaxing but that doesn’t mean boring! It started out with me awakening to a completely glassy Loch Oich with mist and cloud gently rolling through the valley and covering the hill tops… how peaceful it was. There was not even any traffic on the A82 to spoil it.

So, a spot of breakfast (cereal and milk from the shop nearby) and out onto the quiet water. The route was a short one just to Fort Augustus where I wanted to spend night 2 on the canal.

The mist and low cloud cleared as I neared the top of Loch Oich and the peace and quiet was completely shattered by the roar of a jet fighter at about 200ft screaming down the loch! I didn’t get a photo as it was gone before I had time to reach for the camera. This has happened a couple of times on the canal now so it is clearly one of their training routes. I have also seen several Hercules aircraft (four engine cargo planes) at about the same height but they are much slower and usually come in pairs so I have managed a few pics of them.

Going through the next loch I heard a bang that was the sound of two hire boats colliding! I would like to say nothing was broken except their pride but it was clear that the boat that was hit in the side had broken windows on the starboard side. I spoke to them later in the day at Fort Augustus and they seemed totally unfazed nor concerned and the hire company had told them just to continue with their holiday… fair enough.

Arriving in Fort Augustus I had to decide whether to stay for the night at the top of the lock staircase or the bottom. There are pontoons and facilities at both so I moored up and took a walk to the bottom to see which was best. It was clear that there was little space at the bottom and although going through the locks immediately would mean that I wouldn’t have to wait to go through in the morning it wouldn’t make a great deal of difference to me as my leg the next day was just 15 miles up Loch Ness to Drumnadrochit. So I decided to stay at the top and descend in the morning. As it happened this was not the best decision I have made on this trip. No sooner had I converted the boat into a caravan again then young boys started pitching tents on the grass next to the boat. Not just one or two but they kept coming and in the end there were over 20 two man tents and the associated occupants shouting, mock fighting and generally being teenagers… aaaagh! I thought I would have a quiet night in this small village but it looked unlikely now and I was starting to wish I had descended and moored at the bottom. As it turned out I was worrying for nothing as they turned out to be very well behaved and nowhere near as noisy as I thought they would be and I was very pleasantly surprised not to say pleased. Chatting to a few of them I found out that they were canoeing the canal and were from Edgbaston.

Fort Augustus is small and is really just a few shops, restaurants and hotels and B&Bs centred on the canal. It took all of 30 mins to see it all but there are a couple of things worth spending a little more time on. The Caledonian Canal Museum is a great place to get all the information about the canal, how it was built and why. I was pleased to see one of my posters on their wall! The Clansmen Museum is also worth a visit.

So I settled down for the rest of the afternoon and evening, relaxing on the boat and listening to the radio.