A very short passage

Today we made our shortest passage. We woke up on the pontoon at Fort Augustus nearest Loch Ness and we are now on the first pontoon above the flight of five locks. We think the distance is about four cables. It took all morning.

We got up lazily and showered, making use of our licence holder's key. The showers are very well designed and engineered but somewhat poorly conceived. They make the classic shower design error that your hand is under the head as you turn it on so you ineviatably get a cold spray. Worse, it is a single rotating knob from off to cold to warm to hot, so you get more cold before it gets warm. Once running, though they are excellent, powerful with very good range and resolution on the heat control. There is nowhere to sit and no guaranteed dry spot on the floor so I was glad I went in shorts and bare feet.

The motor boat who kindly moved to let us in last night was moving to get water so we chatted and I helped with the lines. A couple with pre-teen children it was their first boating experience. They were having a great time and I don't think it will be their last.

Back on board Alison got the dip stick out and found that as expected, we needed diesel. She went off with the 10l can while I cooked breakfast. The bacon was done and I'd just turned the black pudding when Alison and the lock keeper turned up and we had to be off smartly. We stowed the diesel and turned the stove off and retrieved Worm from her private berth behind the pontoon. We tied her on the side and got lines and fenders ready and were off.

There were eight boats in the lock, two motor boats in front, including our new friends, two identical Moody 28s, who rafted together, another boat I don't recall, a Bavaria 39, an Invicta 26 and Robinetta. We rafted on the Invicta 26. She is called Mustang and the owners keep her at Seaport Marina. I took the stern line and the took the bow line and we walked both boats through the five locks. Mustang's crew had been cooking too when the lock keeper turned up and they ended up with very hard fried eggs!

Behind us they locked through two huge catamarans. They were just one lock behind us so they do 'pipeline' the locks when busy.

Past the locks the next pontoons were very full but we found a short spot just right for us and a Norwegian took our bow line making coming to very easy. Their boat is an ex-fishing boat built in 1940. There are only two sailing boats on the west side of the canal and they are both old wooden ones. All the boats on the east side are GRP. Accidental segregation!

Alison went of to look for morning rolls to augment our breakfast, as I finished the black pudding and cooked the eggs I heard them say on the VHF the Laggan lock keepers were on their lunch break! So we never did get breakfast, it mutated into lunch. The morning rolls were mass produced CostCutter ones. OK, but not morning rolls.

After all that I needed a pint so we headed to the Lock Inn. Unfortunately if you want to take drinks outside they serve you in plastic skiffs. I had a pint of their own branded bitter and Alison had Pimms again. The Pimms came with so much fruit Alison is counting it as one of her portions.

We drank on the lock verge and looked at the boats in the next lock through. One of them was unusual, a schooner catamaran with a wooden foremast and carbon fibre mainmast.

We wandered up past the Boatshed restaurant and took some pictures looking up the loch. We don't think the view is as good as from Dores.

I looked on Tripadvisor and we decided we didn't like the posher places in town so we looked at the Boatshed, the Bothy and the Lock and decided we liked the Lock, the bar maid said they had loads of room and we should just turn up, so we will stay here tonight and move on tomorrow.