To the Caledonian Canal

Friday 24/5/19

We departed at 0700 for Corpach, the entrance to the Caledonian Canal. Still overcast, at least it wasn’t raining. The waters in this area are very sheltered and the scenery nice. Sadly, we were not blessed with sunshine. 

Ferries ply the locks across Scotland, as do the ubiquitous cruise ships which look wholly out of place in the surrounding scenery. 

By 1030 we were at Corpach. A very helpful lock master signed us in, gave us a map, told us of places of interest along the first part of the route and took £316.19 for an 8-day pass. The sun broke through - a sign perhaps of better things to come.

Having locked into the basin and moored up to victual the boat, we next negotiated Neptune’s Staircase. A series of 8 locks that rise 19m over a quarter of a mile. The 2:30 hours it took to negotiate the Staircase gave us an opportunity to get a procedure that worked for us. We still didn’t have a reverse gear on the main engine so I used the wing engine to stop the boat. The only snag was, with the wing engine offset to port from the centre of the boat, each time reverse was selected the stern of the boat kicked to starboard. We managed.

"Locking in"

Ben Nevis

We tied up for the night at 1610 at Benavie.