Neptune's Staircase
Blue skies, a light breeze, calm seas and good friends on a boat. It's hard to beat. Summer has been slow to make an appearance but started tentatively the moment we entered the Caledonian Canal back on 12th July. It's now 1 August and we're in Den Helder in Netherlands and finally it's absolutely, completely and unconditionally SUMMER! Even Windy.com agrees, with a forecast of beautiful weather for the next week. I'm sitting in shorts and t-shirt with bare feet and open doors.
So let me back up to Ireland and tell the story of how I got here. Winter in Cahersiveen was wet, wild and endless. Hugo joined the boat in early May and we slowly made our way up the west coast of Ireland to Inishboffin. It was cold and a bit wet but no big Atlantic gales. Helen's son Mark was in Inishboffin to run in a half-marathon so we had fun cheering him on.
↑ Mark completes the Inishboffin half-marathon.
Hugo left us in Inishboffin and Helen joined us there for the trip to Sligo, her home town. In Sligo I tied the boat to the wharf, hired a cherry picker and installed new wind instruments at the top of the mast. The cherry picker was a bit expensive but much easier than climbing the mast in a bosun's chair. The installation was a success but the instruments don't work! I put the wind instruments problem on the back-burner to think about.
We went off in search of the last shoe repairer on the planet. The soles of my expensive sea boots, old but hardly ever worn, have separated from the uppers. From the outside it looks like they are sewn but now they've come apart it's obvious I was silly to believe my eyes as the stitching is purely decorative. So off we go to the Swagman Pub and meet Dale and an Oz lady who admins a quantum physics lab at UQ. The shoe guy's ancient shop is at the back of the pub. No quantum physics but very handy for a pint while waiting. I had a red ale from the White Hag brewery. Not bad!
Coming out of Sligo we anchor for the night off Coney Island. Helen wakes me at about midnight because we are up against an old cat moored next to us. I shorten the chain and we swing safely away from the cat. But the current takes us inshore into shallow water. The tide is ripping and we are soon aground. No amount of engine + anchor winch can drag us back to deeper water and we are stuck for the duration. The tide bottoms out at 0351 according to the chart and so we cleaned up a bit, put things away and waited for the tide to go out and come back in, which it does at about 0700 next morning. The only issue apart from discomfort from the boat being laid over 45 degrees was water coming back thru the sink outlet that I forgot to close.
We raise the anchor at about 0715. It is well bedded but comes up ok after a tug or two. The weather is grey and rainy but there is a nice breeze from the right direction so we set off for Scotland. We are already tired and it's an overnight trip but it should be straight-forward. By 0830 we are reaching across Donegal Bay in flat seas, digesting bacon and eggs. Not much sleep last night so we take short watches in turns. One reef in the main and the staysail keeps us traveling at 6-7kn.
By the afternoon we are sailing downwind. I drop the main and set the genoa. This reduces the acceleration from rounding up when a wave catches us. The waves have come up to about 2m. It is still quite rolly but nothing further I can do about it. The sun is out so we might recharge batteries after all. House batteries were way down this morning despite that we motored for an hour or more. Something is wrong.
Approaching Malin Head the seas are less, almost smooth, and the wind drops. We're still travelling at 5 to 6 kn though, which will get us to Port Ellen tomorrow morning. However the sunshine doesn't last and the batteries are down again so I run the engine again to put some energy back into them. After a bit of fiddling, thinking and measuring I work out that the big Balmar 160A alternator is not working! Fortunately there are two alternators and so there is still some charge going into the batteries.
By 2330 the sun has set but the sky still has some light in it. At 0500 next morning it is full daylight and we gybe off the Giant's Causeway, away from Ireland, and set course for Port Ellen, Scotland where we arrive at 1045.
The alternator problem turns out to be a loose connector on the field winding of the alternator itself and is easily fixed. The wind instruments are not quite so easy to fix. I go up the mast in the bosun's chair. When I pull the connector apart at first I see nothing wrong but when I look at it it very closely I see that a pin has bent right over so that it is shorted out against the pin next to it. I remove the crappy connectors and splice the wires together with insulation tape. The instruments now work but the connection is temporary. I'll have to go up again and fix it properly.
Helen and I slowly make our way towards Oban on the Scottish mainland, stopping at some of the islands along the way. In Islay we arrive during the annual Fèis Ìle (festival) week and can't get into any of the distilleries despite being anchored in Lagavulin Bay with the iconic distillery front and centre. I get to taste some Bowmore and am a little disappointed. I'd always thought of Bowmore as a top shelf whisky but it is pretty ordinary. Later, in Edinburgh, I did get to taste a Lagavulin Distillers Edition and it was a revelation. I've never tasted anything like it. I'd be ruined for life if I could afford the stuff.
↑ Never got to go inside.
Our next stop after Islay is Colonsay and then Loch Spelve on Mull, which is an excellent, safe and beautiful anchorage. We take in a few castles, as you do in this part of Scotland, and catch the bus up to Tobermory for supplies and a lark.
↑ Evening light on Oban.
↑ The remains of the Oich Bridge.
With a couple of weeks to kill while Helen attends a wedding and completes some personal business I decide to hole up in Lochaline. I have the impression that Scottish Summers are equivalent to Irish winters. It's very cold and I run the heater all day every day, emerging for a long walk ashore now and then. I'd been hoping for a sail out to Rhum or Skye but that would be pretty grim in this weather. So I spend the time reading, writing and working on the boat. I walk for miles and when I run out of fresh milk for the kefir I up-anchor and vist Tobermory before returning to Lochaline next day.
↑ Ardnamurkin at the head of Lochaline.
Lochaline looks beautiful on the surface but it's an ecological disaster. Once upon a time it was a 35,000 acre estate in a remote part of the Scottish west coast that ran a few sheep and cattle and was infested with deer. Now there's a mine and thousands of acres of pine trees. Some old-growth mixed forest has been preserved around the shore and around the magnificent main house and gardens but the forestry is awful. Nothing but moss and mushrooms grows under the pine trees and when they're harvested the devastation on the steep hills is amazing.
↑ Three gorgeous girls: Ageeth, Helen and Anjea.
Helen rejoins Anjea at Oban and we make our way up Loch Linnhe to Corpach where Ageeth, our third crew for the Caledonian Canal, joines us. Neptune's staircase is a baptism of fire for all of us. None of us have any real experience of locks and I expected a lot more assistance from the lock-keepers than we got. After the first three of the eight locks I was starting to sweat blood. The locks were cramped, the swirling waters made it hard to stop the boat from floating back into the boat behind and the lock keepers were no help at all. By the last lock we had it nailed but it was a steep learning curve.
↑ The turbulent lock waters make it hard to control the boat.
The Caledonian Canal is an amazing thing: part natural and part man-made. Geologically, it is a fault line that runs from the Atlantic to the North Sea, with several large natural lochs, some of which are over 200m deep. The engineer Thomas Telford came up with a plan to join the lochs together with a system of locks to provide a safe passage for ships between the North Sea and the Atlantic, eliminating the need to go over the top of Scotland by Scapa Flow or thru the English Channel. The canal is 60 miles long and has 29 locks. The locks are all operated by the lock-keepers and it takes about 3 days to transit. We took a week stopping here and there to admire the scenery and strech our legs.
Going up, water enters the lock from the bottom at the front of the chamber. So if you're the first boat you experience the full force of the great swirling eddies that tug the boat in every direction and it's hard to keep from hitting the walls or drifting back into the boat behind. The problems are exacerbated by placement of the clews on the dock -- there are only a few, they are old and worn, the line tends to get caught under them and their placement is wrong for a boat our size. As first boat going up Neptune's Staircase we had a hard time of it.
The experience is amplified by the audience. Have you ever been on stage? Neptune's Staircase is a popular tourist attraction and I reckon we're on about a hundred Facebook and Instagram pages. If you find us you'll notice a very grim expression on my face as I grip the wheel and try to keep from hitting something. Ageeth and Helen were wonderful -- they quickly got the hang of the ropes and did a masterful job of positioning the boat as best they could.
↑ Hogwarts Express. The bridge opens after the train has passed.
As we approach the next lock after the staircase we let the boat behind go first and watch with amusement and relief as they struggle just as we had. It was a validation of sorts that our troubles were not just due to our inexperience. The lesson is not to be the first boat into the lock when going up!
The rest of the canal is a breeze. We stop every night, stay a day here and there, and enjoy ourselves thoroughly. We eat fish n chips at Port Augustus, take photos of Ben Nevis and the Loch Ness monster, and walk the towpath. There is never a problem finding a place to tie up for the night and the remaining lock keepers are helpful and friendly.
↑ Loch Ness. You can just make out the monster in the middle distance.
↑ The remains of the Oich Bridge.
Inverness arrives all too soon and it is time for Ageeth to leave and husband Hugo to join us. Committments at home prevent them both being on the boat together. Sailing weather for the North Sea is not looking all that good. Summer is at last setting in -- blue skies and warm weather, but light winds. I choose the 25th as the best departure date of a bad lot.
Traversing the last lock coming out of Seaport Marina in Inverness one of the crew on the Norwegian boat ahead of us strikes up with an Irish ballad. It is a beautiful moment. The lock is easy, we are experts now, and we are out into Beauly Firth and on our way to the North Sea and Holland.