We were still waiting for the Scottish sunshine to come out and were feeling optimistic about this. We spent another night in the Caledonian Canal, and the following day started our journey down to the North Sea. We are wondering though whether that black blur in the bottom right corner is actually our wake or is it Nessie about to make an appearance and we’ve missed a money-making opportunity! Thank you to a fellow sailor who sent us a picture (below) of us in Loch Ness. With all the rain we were experiencing we weren’t surprised! Was Nessie going to make an appearance? Think of the press coverage that could bring us! The rain seemed to lift but being a little bit behind schedule at this point we decided to motor through Loch Ness quite quickly. Loch Ness is the second largest Scottish Loch by surface area and the second deepest and apparently it contains more fresh water than all the lakes in England and Wales combined. It was a great view from this lock and now it was time to descend from Fort Augustus into….Loch Ness. Today, Challenge Wales would be at the highest altitude and highest latitude that she has ever been at, which was quite exciting (certainly to the person who was tweeting back at Challenge Wales Towers!….in the dry). Wakey, Wakey! Another day, another new adventure in the Caledonian Canal and although we could say it was a wet and murky start, we like to think it was misty, mystical and eerie! Well our dragon mascot thought that peering at the low drifting clouds. At the top of Neptune’s staircase we decided to call it a day, and moor up for the night…and the rain was just about stopping (yippee!). Of the 60 miles that makes up the Caledonian Canal, 38 miles are along Loch Lochy (we thought this was quite an original name), Loch Oich and….Loch Ness with the remaining 22 miles being canals. But it was fun and lots of people came and said hello to us along the way. Prior to arriving in Scotland, we had seen some fantastic pictures of Neptune’s Staircase in the Scottish sunlight but the misty haze of rain didn’t quite make it as picturesque as we were hoping. Tea break over, the next part of our day was to climb up Neptune’s Staircase, an amazing engineering feat and the longest staircase lock in Britain lifting boats up 2 0metres. Fear not, they came to the boat armed with doughnuts, and Scottish accents, which went down very well….in the rainy weather! As the sun was trying to break through, the lock gates opened and we started our journey.Īs we tied up on arrival, we were welcomed by some friendly Scottish people who had been watching our journey on Marine Traffic (a vessel tracking system) and had been ‘spying’ on us as we arrived. The Caledonian Canal is 60 miles long and would take us across Scotland through some spectacular scenery. Passage planning complete, Fort William was where we were heading for and we were on a strict timescale to get there ready to enter the Caledonian Canal at midday. It was a wet morning as Challenge Wales left Oban, Scotland, in a mere 3 knots of wind.
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