Lunar Sea

Fort William to Oban Day 75  Banavie After the two week break at home which I think we both needed, it was good to get back to make sure Lunar Sea was okay.  All was well and surprisingly, battery voltages were all up above 12 volts so I was happy that the new batteries were doing their job. I had left a bilge pump on stand-by just in case and the Rutland wind generator would have given me some amperage.  I came back with a bag of spares and goodies; a new engine starter switch which was giving us some intermittent starting problems usually when we could do without them; a couple of spare bilge pumps; a spare water circulation pump - I had fitted one when I added a heater fan matrix and a new immersion tank mainly for the shower but found that the system needed a little help instead of relying on the engine pump; some stainless piano hinge that needed to replace some original rusty stuff; a few fittings for a handrail modification I wanted to complete and a selection of engine f

Day 51 Laggan to Banavie 20th June, 2017 Lunar Sea at Laggan What happened - there was sun and no wind!! Laggan was only a small stopover and not much there apart from a few cottages and a small marina, the base for West Highland Sailing - no pub but does boast a floating restaurant (this was closed).  It is on part of the Great Glen Way however, so the main road is not far away.  Pauline made use of this to catch a Coach in the morning to Fort William for her planned trip home.  Before which she managed to fit in a return rail journey to Mallaig which she recommended to us when we got to Fort William. Lunar Sea and Floating Restaurant 'Eagle' For us left in board that hadn't jumped ship we were to have a glorious sunny rest of the day.  Would it continue or were there rain clouds and Scotch miss around the corner.  As it happened we were lucky for once and the sunshine continued - at least for today. We had our first lock to go down at Laggan and the

Day 48 Fort Augustus Fort Augustus was lovely and because of our decision to carry on through Loch Ness of the previous day, we could afford to stay a couple of nights here.  The only thing we needed to do was to go up the swing bridge and flight of 5 locks to the other side for a better start for us the next day when we wanted to go. Lunar Sea at Fort Augustus - Castle and Abbey in background The Lock Inn from the Lock Upper Lock exit - early part of Day We had talked to some other travellers and they had recommended the Lock Inn for a meal as they had just had their lunch there.  It seemed an excellent idea to have dinner there, unfortunately you couldn't book a table and it was a first come, first served basis.  We were told if we arrived before 20 to 7 we should be okay.  We did arrive at that time, it was nearly full already but luckily we did manage to get in as the food was great and well recommended.  The evening was a different day.  Wind and ra

Day 47.  Inverness to Caledonian After a couple of days at Inverness it was time to enter the Caledonian Canal.  It would prove to be helpful to have extra people on board and Mick, Linda Lawrence and Pauline Farrance had joined us at Inverness.  Mick and Linda had come by their own car overnight and Pauline had taken the overnight Caledonian Sleeper train, which would eventually sway us to use it ourselves later on. It is a short 2-3miles trip to the entrance of the Caledonian from Inverness Marina situated at the mouth of the river Ness.  I was advised to call up the 'Sea Lock' Lock Master before leaving the shelter of the Marina so that we could get a slot into the Sea Lock and to avoid waiting outside with what can be some strong currents.  Advise taken, I called up the Lock Master on channel 74 and we were given a 13:30 lock opening to come in with 2 other boats. Timing is critical as we had to enter, book in and exit the lock to coincide with a railway swing bridge op