Welcome to Heydays’ blog which hopefully will take us on adventures as we expand our sailing horizons. We will try to share the highs and lows and hope that friends will share some of them with us.
If you want to read some of the stories from our first year (before the genesis of this blog) we’ll write stuff as it occurs to us in the FIRST YEAR WITH HEYDAYS pages…
A light late morning snooze after the trip across the Pentland Firth, sees us just about awake and bleary eyed at 2pm.
But the day is bright and sunny (for now…this is Orkney after all), and we head out to revisit some of the places we remember. It seems that not much has changed in the intervening nine years, in fact the place seems positively thriving. There are none of the mass of boarded up shops of Wick and far north Scotland, and people are out and about in the sun, or just sitting and chatting…
The nooks and crannies are brilliant and we spend a happy half hour in a wonderfully old-fashioned hardware and general store of the sort that Giles used to draw, everything from (almost) steamrollers to safety pins…
Nine years ago we spent a raucous evening in the Royal Hotel, watching a group from Shetland called Rack and Ruin. Sadly they are no more, but the Royal still has music on Saturday nights….this is a Monday unfortunately, so we content ourselves with a couple of local beers in the Ferry Inn….and a local gin…
…before heading back for dinner and some careful planning for the next few days.
Broadly, we had hoped to sail up to Westray, the most northerly of the Orkney islands. We ponder endlessly over weather forecasts and passages, but whatever way we cut things, we can get there OK, but its the getting back which presents a problem. There are some strong winds forecast for 3 days at the end of the week, and while we can sit them out in Pierowall on Westray, we wonder whether we would be better sitting out in the humming metropolis of Stromness.
OK OK….we know the real sailors out there, and even Joshua Slocum if the old boy was still alive, would be shaking their heads sadly, and muttering about snowflakes afraid of a bit of rough. However, an 8 hour beat into a F6, with the real possibility of missing a safe tidal gate between Hoy and Orkney mainland, is not appealing if we don’t have to submit ourselves to it.
Back and forth goes our thinking, the clarity of which is not helped by general sleepiness. The best decision….some sightseeing tomorrow based on gin and whisky in Kirkwall, and then see what the weather chooses to throw in our direction.
Tuesday, no alarms, bliss…just a morning cuppa in bed and a gradual coming to…
Orkney has a brilliant public transport network where busses actually integrate with each other and the many ferries which ply between the islands. We catch the bus to Kirkwall, but despite being self-evidently old, we don’t pass as Scottish so don’t get a discount off the huge £2 fare!
Before heading too indecently quickly to the distillery, we grab breakfast in what used to be the very grand old townhall…
St Magnus cathedral has a real charm, and the inscriptions of the dead, and even a tapestry presented recently by the King of Norway, all point to the very nordic past and continuing cultural links and ties.
Finally….we can decently head to the Orkney distillery.
A couple of gin flights does the trick, and the rest of the morning passes…
We had intended to trundle out to Scapa distillery, but noticed that the Orkney also does whisky flights where we can compare not just the two main ones, Highland Park and Scapa, but also their own blends, as they have a new single malt ready in the next year or so. It would be rude not to…
Food is needed before more spirit, so we haul ourselves a good 100m to a Japanese street food kitchen for some Teriyaki…and then back for the whisky.
Nine years ago we met Alan and his friend Ian in Wick and because they had some concerns about the engine in their sailing boat, we agreed to accompany them across the Pentland Firth to their homes in South Ronaldsay. We have kept almost in touch via Christmas cards, and hoped to catch up. As luck would have it, we managed to make contact with Alan and hope to see him where he now lives on Burray.
This has given us some more food for thought….we can easily sail to Burray and back before the weather closes in, and we will then be in Stromness ready for a two day window to leave Orkney and get back to the west coast of Scotland.
Back in Stromness we see this…
Great at one level, but a quick snog behind the multi modal, low carbon and active travel hub will never catch on…
…and the day leaves us with yet another rapid weather change, and a lovely photo…
Orkney has not disappointed. It is every bit as charming, lively and quirky as before.
Revisiting places full of happy memories can sometimes be a bit of a fool’s errand. The food will be worse, the weather will be worse, and we will be older. Nevertheless, here we are in Stromness, nine years on, and we are delighted to report that the pessimists are, on this occasion, entirely wrong.
But we are getting ahead of ourselves.
Two consecutive pre-dawn starts had left us in a condition politely described as knackered. Wick offered the prospect of rest and recuperation, and we embraced it wholeheartedly, until we discovered that Sunday public transport in this corner of Scotland amounts to one train and a rail replacement bus, both timed specifically to be of no use whatsoever. Old Pulteney distillery, which might otherwise have provided a perfectly reasonable programme for the day, was shut. Clearly, some activity was going to be required.
We compromised. We took a taxi.
Castle Sinclair Girnigoe turned out to be entirely worth the journey. Perched on sheer cliffs in a manner that would have any modern planning department reaching in fits, it is both magnificent and deeply alarming. Its history is, if anything, even more dramatic than its location. One clan chief, apparently not bothered by the norms of fatherhood, imprisoned his own son within its walls and sustained him exclusively on salt beef until the poor man died of thirst. We don’t think he would have done well in the current era of parenting.
Cromwell passed through briefly, and thereafter the castle got on with the business of falling into ruin.
The coast here is very craggy and we understand why you would build a castle here if you distrust some of the locals, even if it seems completely precarious…
The Noss Head lighthouse nearby has acquired a coffee caravan, which was doing brisk business. The baked goods on offer were extensive, and we concluded that the walk back to Wick would require more calories than strictly needed for nutrition. The cliff-top path being very boggy, we took the road instead, which proved longer but considerably drier, and passed through countryside that once formed part of the Coastal Command network, intercepting signals from German ships and occupied Norway and sending them south to Bletchley for decryption.
Back aboard Heydays, we turned our attention to Orkney. The weather forecast, as is normal round here, is everchanging making life or passages hard to plan. We wanted to reach some of the smaller islands missed on the previous visit, but after some debate, we settled on Stromness as the obvious first port of call, well-placed, well-sheltered, and an entirely acceptable place to be pinned down by the weather for several days should that prove necessary. Up here, this is what is known as a plan.
The Pentland Firth demanded its usual degree of respect. The tidal streams through here are not merely strong, they are the stuff that features in accident reports. The standing waves known as the Merry Men of Mey are named, one can only assume, by someone with a very odd sense of humour, as there is nothing remotely merry about them. Vessels considerably larger and more robust than Heydays have come to grief in them. The pilotage is precise, two miles east of Duncansby Head, one hour and fifteen minutes after high water Dover, at the exact moment of slack water as the tide turns north-west. We needed to be there at 0615. Wick is two and a half hours away under engine. The arithmetic is straightforward and deeply unwelcome: alarm at 0245, slip mooring at 0330.
The one concession the far north makes at this time of year is that darkness barely registers. We went to bed at eight o’clock in broad daylight, which is a peculiar experience, and lay there with the rain doing its best to keep us awake.
Sleep came, eventually, but was not entirely restful…
At 0245, the alarm achieved what rain, daylight, and general anxiety had failed to do and woke us up. We got ourselves into full wet weather gear and sufficient warm layers to stifle all mobility, and by 0330 were sliding quietly away from the mooring with enough light to steer by…
We have the lights of Noss Head and then Duncansby Head to guide us, and we slide past the now ghostly Castle Sinclair Girnigoe.
The only other signs of life at this god-forsaken hour are the ever present, very cute, but incredibly shy guillemots. They resolutely refuse to be photographed and swim away underwater with a technique that looks just like flying.
The rain eases, but the temperature stays firmly well in single figures as the headlands pass in silhouette. Hot coffee helps…
With absolutely no wind at all we use “the old iron tops’l”, as old sailors probably never said, and we get to the start of the Pentland Race exactly at slack water and to the minute of the pilot guide….smug or what…
As Duncansby Head and the iske of Stroma fall astern, and Muckle Skerry with its very lonely light slides past to starboard…
…we fix our eyes on South Ronaldsay and Swona. The westerly stream is now doing its best to suck us towards the race, and we are steering around 40 degrees east just to make good our course.
Gradually we draw a beam of Swona, and, now protected by South Ronaldsay, we are through the worst and still with no wind, motoring freely towards Scapa Flow.
We see it coming….a squall from dead ahead bringing winds on the nose, heavy rain, and very little visibility. Our plan is to head up Hoxa Sound and then across Scapa Flow, but a message on the radio adds to our joy as it warns of a big tanker leaving to transit down the Sound in the opposite direction.
We decide to use discretion (much underrated) and instead plot a passage to shimmy between the island of Hoy and the small islands of Switha, Flotta and Cava.
As the visibility improves slightly, we catch a glimpse of the tanker, thankfully to be nowhere near…
The change of course turns out to be delightful, as the weather changes as rapidly as it came, and we find ourselves in bright sun (albeit with wind on the nose….obviously).
The last few miles past Graemsay and in to Stromness are brilliant and there is a real sense of almost a homecoming.
The ferry runs in ahead of us …
and by the time we have tied up ourselves, it is already loading for the return trip.
We feel like we’ve done a day’s work already…it’s only 10.45am, but fried eggs and more coffee make up ….what? Breakfast? Brunch?…..before a really welcome snooze. It’s great to be back.
Even after one day, the early morning routine is established….get dressed by numbers, say a bleary good morning as brightly as we can to each other and get the kettle on. The forecast is for showers, a bit of a chill and Easterly F4….more getting togged up and more layers. Just as we are getting ready to slip the mooring, Billy and his son arrive back in harbour and they are really chipper having had a good haul of langoustines. We thank him for the crab, but as we leave the harbour he throws us a big bag with at least 60 or 70 langoustine tails. What a brilliant way to start the day and so we slide out into the new day with not just hot coffee, but a really wonderful warm feeling and broad smiles on our faces.
The easterly F4 does not materialise…in fact there is not enough wind to properly fill the sails. However, the previous night’s easterly has left a rather short swell over the beam and Heydays rolls slightly uncomfortably. We tighten the sails, not to drive us along, but just to dampen the rolling.
The coast is definitely becoming craggier and there are all sorts of cliffs and stacks rising out of a sea with breakers at their foot.
Off shore there is a huge windfarm and we seem to be sailing past it for hours…alternately it is in bright sunshine and at other times we see the rain squalls washing past…some of which get us as well.
Amid all the slop and tossing of a beam swell, some dolphins decide to keep us company for a while. Not as spectacular as Coleraine last September, but they always lift the spirits…
As we approach Wick, there are signs of civilisation appearing on the cliffs, but no sign of the promised fresh easterlies…
We call the Wick Harbourmaster and he is waiting on the pontoon to guide us in and to take lines…another great welcome and service which we have rarely (if ever) met ‘down south.
We lunch on crab linguine, langoustines and a bottle of white…cheers again Billy from Helmsdale…and promptly fall asleep….
We do a short shopping list and head off to the Coop for essentials…2 whites, 2 reds, one gin, one tonic and some spaghetti….its a tough life.
Wandering round town, we get a sense of real decay since even the last time we were here in 2017. There are just so many shops which are boarded up and even the Weatherspoons has gone. It was clearly once a very grand town with huge wealth built on the herring. One information board describes the heyday of the herring industry with a single day catch of over 100million herring and an army of over 3000 fearsome herring gutter women. With over 1000 boats out of Wick in the 1930s we see just a couple of dozen now. The information board seemed to blame the quotas introduced in the 60s, but the reality is that the herring were simply over-fished, and they killed the very thing which made them rich.
However, as we wander back towards the harbour we see some signs for the future…huge wind turbine blades on the dockside ready for transportation to a new wind farm just down the coast. The blades are huge…78.5 meters long according to a young dock steward, and 20 tons, and are carried vertically on specially designed transporter. Great, we think. Maybe there is hope and life for the future, only to be told that these blades have come from Germany, while others come from Mexico and the US. We are left angry and frustrated. Why are we not building them here? Why are we not giving some hope, jobs and prosperity to a town which clearly needs it?
OK OK, this is a sailing blog, but one of the best bits about sailing like this is that we get to visit places which are convenient harbours, but which are off the tourist trail. We get to see bits of our country which we would not otherwise have visited and to confront some difficult truths about post industrial, finance and service sector focused UK.
We are back on Heydays having spent some time back home, renewing our acquaintances with grandchildren, gardens/allotments and general domestic stuff.
Chris is not with us for this leg so it’s just John, James and Yee Tak driving up to Inverness early on Tuesday morning. We take turns driving, 2 hours on and 2 hours off…a bit like being on watch for long sea passages. Breakfast in probably the best
motorway services in the country, at Gloucester Farm Shop, and apart from a few pottystops and hand-overs, we get to Heydays by early evening and it’s great to be back on board…and she smells good too!
We have a couple of day’s worth of jobs planned…including new valves for the toilet…who says sailing is all glamour.
Friday morning and a 5.30am alarm gets us up if not raring. We were woken at times in the night as the rigging was whistling and vibrating in the wind, and the rain lashed down with a fierce drumming on the roof…not conditions conducive to a good sleep. The
forecast is for westerly winds F4 to 6, but with showers for most of the day. The main
reason for relinquishing our pillows so early, is so that we can get the strong ebb current out under the bridge and through the Channory Narrows. We get fully togged up as not only are we expecting rain, but the wind is chilly too.
We called Helmsdale Harbourmaster yesterday to check that there would be space for us, only to be told that due to a winter of South Easterly storms, the harbour and the entrance is silted up and that it is effectively closed to leisure boats. We explain that as a bilge keeler with limited draft, we are used to the south coast mud and are happy to take the ground. After a conversation with his boss, the very helpful Billy said that he
was happy to take us and that if we call when we are close, he will guide us in.
It is brilliant to get the boat ready for the open sea…checking sails, ropes and finalising
the navigation for the day.
Finally…we slip our mooring and slide out into the bright Inverness morning…
With the fresh breeze fine over the port quarter, we opt just for a genoa. Over the years we have found that the old girl sails really well like this, and is easy to tack down wind. The added note here is that we don’t need to push on too rapidly as we can’t enter
Helmsdale until 2.30 at the earliest.
As Inverness falls astern into a brightening sky, we are grateful for our early morning coffee. This is June, but with lots of layers stuffing us up, it feels more like February.
We zig zag through the narrows and then we see them…our first dolphins of this leg. Sadly for us they are more interested in their own breakfast than playing or allowing their photo to be taken, but it is still lovely to see them…
We settle in to the usual pattern of a longish passage, the autohelm doing its job and us watching for the usual pot buoys. Of other ships we see nothing, just a small coaster pushing out eastwards.
The rain comes and goes and we are thankful for our wet weather gear, but when the sun deigns to make an appearance we are quite pathetically grateful…but it really lifts the spirits.
Lunch of hot soup and bread is a real treat…
…and soon we are contacting Billy the harbourmaster to guide us in across the new sandbanks. We line up the marks and then with a sharp turn into the harbour as instructed we are in and Billy is there to take our lines. 9 years ago we were the first yacht of the season to visit Helmsdale, this year we are also the first of the season to attempt the entrance. Just as we make fast our lines, the sky opens (again) and we retreat inside to dry off.
Billy has only been doing the job for a couple of months, as he used to be a regular fisherman. Now, with a couple of hip ops behind him, his son has the boat and Billy helps out from time to time, although he still has a small boat of his own which he uses occasionally. Mostly they catch crab, lobster and langoustines which they sell to local restaurants and hotels.
We opt for an afternoon nap and when we wake up, we find that Billy has left us a tub of crab meat. He is due to go out this evening with his son and so we say goodbye and just realise again how friendly and helpful the harbourmasters are up here.
Helmsdale has clearly seen better days, and the storms and silting of the harbour will do nothing to help. With a few forty winks under our eyelids, we head off for a wander round…
to the ‘famous’ La Mirage fish and chip restaurant. It is renowned for its huge portions, its glitzy pink décor and its famous attraction for Barbara Cartland who was apparently a frequent visitor. Under new owners the portions are less enormous, but we still can’t finish everything. We head back to Heydays considerably heavier than when we left and prepare ourselves for another early tide to catch.
Today is the day we leave the canal system for good. We’re booked to go out at 10, when the railway swing bridge will open (controlled by Network Rail instead of the canal organisation).
Just as we leave, we’re getting really slick at this lock stuff…
Just one final lock and we’re back on salt water. The canal has been made special by the helpfulness and cheerfulness of the staff, not a single snigger as lines snag or fenders slip…they’ve been brilliant.
The flood tide coming under the Kessok bridge is phenomenal at around 5kts…mental note…we’ll leave here on the ebb
The rest of the morning is spent packing and deciding what to take home, what to leave and what is surplus. We’ll pick up a one way rental car tomorrow and then be back in around 2 weeks.
A wander into town sees us with some intetesting music in MacGregor’s bar. It’s some kind of jazz, which turns out to be manouche….a French gypsy jazz. This is followed by a group playing more traditional Scottish reels. A very relaxing way to spend a Sunday afternoon…
…and then we head back to Black Isle for beer and pizza.
Overall…a brilliant time in Scotland, so far…great place, great people, new friends and some brilliant memories…
We have planned a last day in the Seaport Marina, in order to do some sightseeing in Inverness. A leisurely morning and a final bon voyage to Andioni, and we’re wandering into town…first stop is Leakeys bookshop. This is an amazing place, with secondhand books covering every single wall and vertical surface. There is a vast log burning stove in the very centre of all this dried old paper…not lit today.
We could have spent all day just browsing, and as it is we wander happily around and end up walking out with just a few old tomes.
Inverness is a lovely old city and today it is playing host to a very eclectic mix of classic motors…everything from a Bond Bug to a Mclaren, with old moggies, a couple of Vivas and not a few Capris in between. We’re treated to a parade at the end of the day, serenade by bagpipes and drums.
Just wandering, people watching, and mooching is a very relaxing way to spend a day, with some lovely views over the river Ness…
We wind up in a ‘shed’ on the rooftop garden in the Black Isle Bar…a huge selection of craft beers, including Black Island Hibernator which is only sold in max one third pints…
The little café at Dochgarroch has tempted us with a cooked breakfast, and the six of us convene at the suitably relaxed time of 9.30. The Full Urquhart suits the haggis munching, meat-eaters and they also do the usual smashed avocado, poached eggy stuff as befits a 21st century urban café.
Our broad plan is to make the short hop to Seaport Marina, virtually in the heart of Inverness and then do a bit of touristy sight-seeing ourselves. The only slight complication is the flight of locks and a couple of swing bridges which need some advance notice.
The lockkeeper is very efficient and organises us to get going reasonably rapidly in order to make the swing bridges and to get to the flight before lunchtime closure. This is definitely getting more populated, and there is a real mixture of boats along the canal-side…some live-aboards, some lovingly looked after, and also a few of the sadly decaying but clearly once-loved wrecks.
There is something sad about boats in that condition, clearly once the apple of someone’s eye, or the embodiment of their watery dreams, now amounting to a cash drain or a doleful reminder of hopes gone…
Despite the closeness of Inverness there is still a plethora of wildlife eyeing us warily as we pass.
We get to the flight of locks and take temporary moorings at the appointed time as some boats finish their transit up the flight and exit. We prepare our lines, start the engines, only to see the lock gates close firmly shut again and the keepers begin their lunch. Oh well, we’re in no rush…
Once their lunch is done, we transit the flight. This is easy stuff now, we feel like old hands just as we’re about to leave the canal system.
The swing bridge at the bottom opens and were in Seaport Marina, our last stop on the Caledonian. We finish the evening with Ian and Maureen over for a drink, and swap plans for Andiamo and Heydays over the summer. They are heading south and plan to possibly over-winter on the East Coast with vague ideas about a European adventure in ’27. After a couple of weeks back home, we’ll come back to Heydays and hopefully head north towards Wick and Orkney and then a second chance at the Outer Hebrides. We’ve had a lovely time cruising the canal in their company and will definitely keep in touch…
To be fair, Nessie himself (herself? Themselves?), could have given us a scaly tap on the shoulder or swum around the boat taking selfies, and we would barely have registered, through the driving rain and gloom.
The day started a bit dampish as we slipped the lines and began the descent of the 5 lock flight to Loch Ness . Once again we were in the company of Ian and Maureen on Andiamo. As we passed the Lock Inn, three of us (OK…Ian, John and James) were reminded that the beer and whisky went down really well, and that this morning we feel slightly less than our best…we dont get much sympathy…
Through the swing bridge and Loch Ness opens out into a wide and deep stretch of straight water. The wind was directly on the nose (of course), and at times, sent sheets of water barrelling down the loch. We kept the cockpit cover up and at least kept dry through the worst of the squalls…
The Loch is around 20 miles long, so we settled in for a 3 to 4 hour passage. From time to time the rain stopped and the Loch teased us with glimpses of beauty and colour in the sunlight…
At its northern end, Loch Ness becomes narrow and changes into Loch Dochfour. Its just like cruising up a river. The wind has died, the sun toys around with us…
…and as we see more excursion boats taking trippers to see ‘Nessie’, we realise that our solitude and tranquility are slowly diminishing as we get closer to Inverness, now only a few miles away.
Dochgarroch is busy, but the two boats manage to find some berths above the lock. This is something of a tourist hotspot as the departure point for boat trips to Loch Ness. The cafe is nice, but the gift shop most definitely knows its tourist market and charges accordingly. Whisky has less of an attractuion tonight and we’re all tucked up and in bed before 10pm…so much for a rock and roll lifestyle…
The weather up here changes with almost every glimpse. We wake up to sunshine and blue skies, but also certain that things will change…
Heydays slides away from the mooring, and we glide along Loch Lochy (did they run out of ideas for names?) for the short hop to Laggan at the start of Loch Oich. We’re in no rush…just enjoying the scenery of the beautiful Highlands…
We keep the cockpit tent up, as a foil against the wet squalls we know will come, and we are motoring today with no chance of a sail…
We alternately bake in the sunshine inside, but then are grateful as the rain and even some hail lashes through like some kind of demented banshee.
Ian and Maureen on Andiamo are ahead of us and we have agreed to meet up again at Laggan at the other end of the Loch. We were planning to stay this side of the locks, but they let us know that we need to go through to the available moorings…
While the locks are easy to handle, some of the deeper ones present a challenge to throw ropes up to the lock keeper.
Ian and Maureen on Andiamo are moored on the pontoon next to us and we have a lovely early evening on their Jenneau. Yee Tak and Maureen continue reminiscencing about their school days, including a few bars of the old school song. Maureen’s mum also taught at their old school in HK (St Paul’s Convent School in Causeway Bay) and taught the elders sister of Yee Tak’s best friend.
We all agree to cruise in company as far as Fort Augustus. It is easier for the lock keepers and the swing bridges, if they can get a few through at a time.
We look smugly at the weather out over the Hebrides, and congratulate ourselves on having dodged some nasty stuff by changing our plans.
The day opens up quite dramatically with mist and clouds on the hills above us, and we nose out into the start of Loch Oich. This is the highest point of the trip, from now on, the locks will be down hill.
Loch Oich is part of a river system, and meanders slowly north east. A cruise boat passes by and we’re grateful not to meet it at the narrowest places. The locks now are simplicity itself, as we motor in at the high level…no need to flex biceps, straining to throw ropes…
We radio ahead and wait for a while until the swing bridge opens. This is all very efficient and the bridge radios ahead to the lock…
The canal is easy motoring, and we’re enjoyingthe scenery…but we’re looking forward to getting back on the open sea at some point, and feeling the old girl heel into a decent breeze.
Finally we reach Fort Augustus, and moor, just as the hail breaks and hammers on the roof and decks. We stay just at the top of the flight of 5 locks…further away from the general mass of tourists. We marvel at the fact that we will be right in the centre of lots of unknown people’s holiday snaps.
4.30 sees us in the Lock Inn with Ian and Maureen…8.30 sees us still in the lock inn and getting just slightly more talkative…
Brilliant evening with some lovely new sailing chums…
We’re booked in to start our transit of the canal for 9am, so a relatively leisurely start, giving time to have a look at a huge cruise boat coming out… she barely fits…
…and then tea, coffee and a shower…not so. At 8.30 the lock master comes along to say that we are expected and can we please join 3 other boats already in the lock. John and Yee Tak almost break into a trot to get back on board, and then a less than leisurely few minutes getting thge right ropes, fenders etc ready for the deep locks ahead.
The first one (the sea lock) is easy…
However, ahead of us is the famous Neptune’s Staircase. A flight of 7 locks…all of them deep. There are 4 boats going through, a couple of very big, but skittish racing yachts which move around a lot in the turbulent waters of the locks when the sluice gates open.
With three of us ashore tending ropes, we look on a bit too smugly at how well Heydays behaves…perhaps we’ll get our come-uppance!
The back drop to the locks and the whole canal is stunning. I know I’ve used that word a lot, but I’m in danger of running out of superlatives…
We’re through and then cruise gently along the canal past a couple of swing bridges, while a train and cars patiently (we assume) wait for our little flotilla to pass.
We pass our final lock for today with the slightly confusing name of Gairlochy Lock. There is a quiet pontoon (with electricity for the fridge) and we’re tied up and hearing nothing but birdsong against the background of snowy mountains…
This is such an amazing place, not a sound save for birds and the occasional chuckle of water round the stern. We decide to stay for the night.
Postscript: One of the boats we have been in company with today is called Andiamo, a Jeanneau 32. They approach to come behind us on the pontoon, and we take their lines and generally help. We introduce ourselves and as always have to spell out Yee Tak’s name. “She’s from Hong Kong” we explain. “Oh” says Maureen (partner Ian) “I was born in Hong Kong and left in 1971 when I was 14”. What a coincidence… One thing leads to another and we invite them round for early evening drinks. Things then get even weirder… It turns out that Maureen and Yee Tak both went to the same school in HK (St Paul’s) and were both in the same year (although different classes). The rest of us watch on as bystanders at a school reunion, as they discuss the various teachers and nuns they had the fortune (or sometimes misfortune) to be taught by. It was lovely watching them reminisce back down to their schoolgirl days…
heydays346 