Julian pulled the anchor up at 1715. One fluke was covered in grey mud, but the rest was clean; had that one fluke held us the whole time? We were running down the loch towards Urquhart on foresails with minutes of raising the anchor, but it was slow, so we hoisted the main and reached at the edge of a run, into Urquhart bay.
We went well in, trying to see where the river came out, and spotted it at last. Not a big river by any means! We gybed round then reached along the shore close hauled towards the castle. For the first time I could feel the strength of the wind, and it was far more than the 3-5 knots in the forecast. A motor boat appeared round the corner, very close to the castle and potentially on a collision heading, but they changed course to stay close in and gave us plenty of sea room and a friendly wave.
We got some lovely views of the castle as we passed it and it fell away behind us, and I turned back onto the very broad reach that should take us across to Foyers. The small waves on the water were beginning to built into following seas (or should that be lochs?), and Worm rode along on a wave behind us. Every now and then the wave would break with a whoosh that sounded like a dolphin blowing, or was it a monster thinking of taking our Worm?
When we reached Foyers the anchorage and quay did not look friendly. Far from dying with the evening our light NE breeze was now a solid force 3-4 and the boats already on their moorings and against the quay were bucking uncomfortably. We got the main down and headed in, but after a closer look decided we did not fancy staying. We could not tell how long it would be before the wind died down, and at the moment the waves were building and reflecting back from the south side of the bay.
The main went back up, and we headed for the next anchorage, at Invermoriston. It was on the north side, so should be more sheltered. The wind was still increasing behind us, so when Julian took the helm he decided it was better to broad reach than accidentally gybe (no argument here)! He unfurled the jib to balance the boat better, but 40 minutes later we got it back in and reefed the main. We were doing over 5 knots, even reefed, and the steering was much easier.
The wind was funnelling down Loch Ness and Invermoriston looked bleak, and without shelter. Although marked as an anchorage there was no obvious shallow area to set the anchor. Julian and I looked at each other, and said, “Fort Augustus.”
45 minutes later I was back on the helm and we had reached the south side of Loch Ness again, under some cliffs. It was time to gybe again, and we were all set, with the main hauled in, when I put the tiller over. We went round on our residual way, but no wind came to fill the sails and they hug limp. We had to put the engine on and motor back to the centre of the Loch before we found the wind again. It was still with us, but much lighter than it had been. We turned the engine off, and after a while our 2 knots went up to 4 again. We could have let the reef out, but we were almost at Fort Augustus, and it was nearly 2200.
We reached Fort Augustus just as the chart plotter decided it was night time and changed its display, which makes it difficult to read. The Caledonian Canal Skippers guide says not to travel at night, but we did not have much choice! We got the sails down and motored into the canal entrance, looking for a place to moor up. The pontoons were not full exactly, but the boats were well spaced, making it impossible to fit a boat between them. Even a small one like Robinetta!
We turned round when we reached the bridge, thinking we'd have to raft up on someone, but a nice family in a hired motor boat noticed us, and moved their boat along so we could slip in behind. We moored up at 2230, after an unexpectedly exciting sail down Loch Ness.
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