Tuesday 25th August 2009 – Thursday 27th August 2009

Peter and P J fixed the mainsail so hopefully we can sail tomorrow. We also have charts to take us to Ireland. Hired a car as the weather was so bad and drove into Oban. The scenery is so beautiful . waterfalls, mountains and lots of woodland.
Motored on to Neptune’s Staircase. It rained all day. Stopped off and had lunch on the Eagle barge pub. What a great idea to turn a barge into a pub. Unfortunately the pub landlord’s had seen happier days. Today could have just been a bad day but I really believe they need to move on. There was no warmth or friendliness at all. Not to be revisited.

Monday 24th August 2009

We motored through Loch Ness to Fort Augustus Staircase. What a beautiful sight. We still have no mainsail but we do have some new ball barings.
Sunday 23rd August 2009

Sunday 23rd August 2009

We left Seaport Marina in Inverness at 12.30pm to enter the Caledonian Canal. We had four locks to navigate at first and then we were in the canal. We were quickly made aware of a lot of charter boats, some of who didn’t know much about boats and navigation.

Saturday 22nd August 2009

I arrived in Inverness on the sleeper train from London Euston to be met by Peter. Phillip, Louise and Logan came to visit.

Arbroath to Stonehaven

We were going to stay in Arbroath for a couple of days as the forecast wasn’t looking good however once up it looked OK so we made a run for Stonehaven, about 5 hours away. We left at 0800 and arrived at 1330 sailing most of the way between 7 and 8 knots. One hour out of Stonehaven the wind dropped so we put the sails away and motored into Harbour. We are currently tied up to the Harbour wall in a picture postcard Harbour. Weather permitting we will head to Peterhead tomorrow, about an 8 hour journey.

Eyemouth to Arbroath

Setting off at 0800 on Tuesday 11th August 2009 heading towards Arbroath we left with sunshine and light winds. Two miles out we set the main only to have the bottle screw at the top of the mast come apart and shower us with plastic bearings followed by the swift collapse of the main onto the deck. PJ quickly got ropes and the bosons’ chair ready and within 5 minutes we had him lifted to the top so that he could get the bottle screw back down. I know that PJ loves going up and has had plenty of practice however the light winds had picked up and there was a good swell throwing all over the place. Anyway he stayed aloft for approximately 45 minutes while I made repairs and we managed to get the sail back up (outstanding courage PJ). Its times like this that I realise how lucky I am to have PJ and Candi as crew. Candi was on safety rope and working hard holding the sail onto the boat when nature had other ideas. Some 8 hours later and after crossing a pretty rough entrance to the Firth of Forth we arrived in Arbroath and tied up right next to the Arbroath Smokies shop, lovely.

Eyemouth

We made it into Eyemouth on the 5th of August with the intention of stopping overnight. As we stopped the engine we heard a loud banging coming from the engine. The plan had been to sail to Granton so that it would be easier for Fiona to get to the boat from Edinburgh for her weekend visit. The decision was made to stay at Eyemouth so that I could inspect the engine. It turned out that one of the engine mounts had collapsed which will need replacing hopefully when we return to Chatham. I was able to carry out a temporary repair on Thursday which will get us through the journey time will tell. We hired a car from a small place some 34 miles from Eyemouth which meant a bus journey to collect the car then a drive back and then a 50 mile drive that evening to collect Fiona from Edinburgh Station. We had a lovely few days at Eyemouth topped off with Fiona coming up for the weekend. After dropping Fiona back and returning the car we had a further day, finally leaving on Tuesday morning (6 days after arriving).