Day 51/57 - Caledonian Canal - Laggan to Banavie (Fort William)

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 then a short passage until we got to Loch Lochy.
 
Eastern Entrance to Loch Lochy from Laggan

This was what we had come up here for.  The scenery was stunning all along the 10 miles of the Loch and the first view of Ben Nevis with its snow still on the Northern faces.  We were motoring all the way at slow speed to fully enjoy all the 'vistas'.

First Sight of Ben Nevis

At the Western end of Loch Lochy is Gairlochy. A lock, swing bridge and second lock. The second lock was open fully and we found out that the swing bridge had a problem.  It made sense to stop at the waiting pontoon and go ashore for a look see.

Gairlocky waiting Pontoons


We found out that the swing bridge was open to Boat traffic just not to Road traffic as the shut interlock was not working.  Good for us so we waited for an opening behind 'Cruiser' a large cruising boat - it was a tight squeeze but we just made it.  Then just one more swing bridge at Moy and a couple of miles to the top of Neptune's Staircase at Banavie the nearest point to Fort William for a pontoon mooring with electricity.

Ben Nevis from Canal

Lunar Sea at Banavie

It was just one of probably only a few lovely days in our whole adventure. 

Lunar Sea at Banavie (Fort William) Ben Nevis behind

It was Tuesday and Mick and Linda were to leave us on Thursday and it was decision time again we still had until Saturday before our licence ran out.  We had already decided that we weren't going to be heading too far North after we left the Canal and not go over the top of Scotland to Orkneys and a further trip in the Caledonian. 
With the weather forecast for the weekend not looking good - nothing new there - we would stay put and look again later.  Mick and Linda left us as planned and so on Friday with no real improvement in the forecast we went and saw the Sea Lock Lockmaster at Corpach and extended our 'licence'  to cover a month until 16th July - we were coming home for a couple of weeks break from the trip and the incessant bad weather and hopefully return to some better weather.

It would also give me a chance to get on ebay to pick up some spares for my return and us a chance to get a look around the area and a trip to Mallaig. 
We were booked on the Caledonian Sleeper on Monday night. . . . . . .


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