Fungus time

Spring and summer have both come and gone and the season I have really been looking forward to has finally made it to Carradale. Along with some wild weather, Autumn brings us a profusion of colours which transform the hillsides, dripping reds and browns from every tree bough and changing the character of the Highlands. Then in a quieter way new growth emerges from the ground in the form of mushrooms and toadstools in all shapes and sizes. Fungus thrives in the damp places along our forest paths, feeding on fallen logs, invading the peat moss and even sprouting amongst the grass in our back garden.

There is a full spectrum of colours but these growths are fleeting objects which can dissolve to nothing in the course of one day once they have released their spores into the world. Whenever the weather allows we rush outside to try to capture their brief lives in photographs, to preserve forever what nature chooses not to. This page shows off just a tiny part of the Carradale fungus compendium, delicate things that I must leave others to give names to.

Against our wishes we are driven indoors when the gale arrives and torrential rain thunders down, an exciting but all too frequent event over the last few weeks. I reluctantly turn to my second choice pastime - exploring the mysteries of the house we live in, going through a process, familiar to many, of uncovering the work of previous house owners, learning about the changes they have made, what has been covered up by successive layers of decor and what lies still hidden beneath floors and behind the fitted cupboards. It seems inevitable that years of history will manifest itself in the fabric of a building in such a way as to subvert any refurbishment project or at least to undermine the timetable yet somehow this is something that is never given due prominence on TV property improvement programmes. It is not a question of uncovering poor workmanship, more an issue of the time it takes to discover how the elements of a house have been put together so that they can be unpicked without causing too much damage.

One of our domestic objectives is to provide electrical power to a garden shed which will be delivered and erected next week, my workshop space in the garden. So, having nothing better to do, I begin crawling around our roof spaces where I uncover a rather stout but unconnected length of electrical cable which meanders about the place and which disappears from sight beneath our bedroom floor heading in a purposeful way towards the front of the house. It no longer carries any electrical current – it must be a relic of a time when our domestic water was heated by electrical immersion – but I can perhaps make use of the cable if I can locate the other end which is hidden somewhere in the structure of our property.

Inevitably in this type of exploratory operation, the time comes when one just has to get destructive; there is nothing else for it, no other way to get to the inaccessible space I need to peer into. Perhaps I could rip up the bedroom floor to see what lies beneath but with laminate laid over our solid tongue and grooved floorboards this is not a happy option. In any case there is an alternative, to approach this space from below by making holes in a ceiling on the ground floor. It is at about this point that I discover what used to be a corridor or passage leading from the front of the house into what used to be a small back kitchen. This route was sealed off many years ago so that the kitchen could be redesigned and enlarged and the only evidence now is in the walls of our small broom cupboard beside the stairs in the centre of the house, It is hard to imagine, in a small house such as ours, a different layout of rooms from what we see today, but clearly this was once the case, I cannot argue with the evidence of my eyes.

I am covered from head to toe in plaster dust by the time I have successfully located the missing end to my cable but am satisfied that we can make use of it and do not have to thread another cable through the house.

As the sun pops out, once more we grab our waterproofs and don our walking shoes for another blast of exercise and fresh air, of which there is still plenty flying about. Does it matter that the rain showers come and go regularly as we ascend to the top of Deer Hill? Do we care that lying water quickly penetrates our shoes and soaks through to our toes? Do we meet any other walkers out braving the weather? No, no and well yes, surprisingly, we do meet one young couple, Londoners, who are staying in a cottage previously inhabited by their grandparents but since retained by the family as a holiday home. Shifting mentally between the landscapes of Southwark and Carradale takes some doing, we know, and they did have an air of puzzlement about them as if Kintyre was still sinking through into the deeper parts of the brain. It does take a little time.

Ducking out

In Carradale the one big event by which we residents can mark the passage of the seasons is over for another year, thus heralding the end of the holiday season and the slide towards winter. I write, of course, of the annual Duck Race, an event which brings the whole village together in one place to celebrate nothing less than the voyages of hundreds of small yellow plastic toys down a short stretch of Carradale Water.

Pointless though this activity may seem, the event brings with it the kind of excitement normally reserved for a big football match or possibly an episode of Strictly Come Dancing (I speculate) as we all stand on the river bank cheering on the one we have chosen and named for the occasion. The organisers must have heaved a sigh of relief as this year we were blessed with superb weather, lots of sunshine and conditions underfoot along the river that needed only stout shoes and not, as so easily could have been the case, wellington boots. For twenty two years now (so I am told) this event has been a feature of village life, a way to raise church funds but also a social gathering par excellence. That it should take this bizarre pastime to bring us us all into one place at the same time is strangely British, I fear, but no less welcome for that.

Kate was unable to enjoy the day with me on this occasion as she was away in England visiting family. So there I was striving to complete the tiling around our new multi-fuel stove so that I could use it to take the chill off the evening, at which point it suddenly struck me that I was alone in our house here for the first time since we moved in. Maybe it was this that made me become reflective, to begin thinking that despite now being well into our third post-retirement year, something keeps peeping its head over my mental horizon, a slightly worrying thought that niggles away at me just when I ought to be relaxed and carefree. I am aware that the source of this comes from my working life for the years leading up to retirement which was, like that of many, a pressured, self-driven existence. This was not something I was particularly aware of at the time but it had become very much part of my mental landscape just the same. My working days never simply took care of themselves, they always had to start with a plan, sometimes concocted many days ahead, and then this measured afterwards against what had been achieved. If a day did not end with the satisfaction of progress being made towards its goal then it felt like a day wasted, one that ended with a real sense of disappointment. Worse than this was the fact that the goal still hung there with less time now to achieve it, pressure creating more pressure.

This was the treadmill which I walked, daily, and for so long that the behaviour had disappeared into my character; it became a part of my very being. It is as a result of this that today I do not find a state of relaxation very easy to achieve and despite no longer needing to, I find myself setting goals which I later measure against what I have done on the day. So why is it that I am still this way, more than two years after having to be? Why is it that, as our friend Paul would say, I still have ‘ants in my pants’?

Part of the answer to this may lie in what Kate and I have done with our lives since retiring, most of which is recorded in the pages of this blog. We have sailed extensively and travelled nomadically around the shores of the British Isles. We have lived abroad for a time, refurbished and re-decorated a house, then just this year moved north to God’s own country to do more of the same again. We have set ourselves targets and then driven ourselves towards achieving them, not against our wishes, I hasten to add, but nevertheless behaviour like this does not comply at all with the retiree stereotype; it looks more like we are still working! In our post-retirement lives there has always been something to do next, something to plan for, a journey to make or a task to perform.

We enjoy being this way, not fitting the mould is the way we think about life, it is what we are comfortable with. But what next? For the first time since retiring we have settled in one place, Carradale, a place we love and have no intention of leaving. We are beginning to live differently from the way we have lived over the last two years, a more settled existence. For the moment there is still plenty to do here, the jobs are queuing up for some months ahead – there is decorating to do, we have a new shed on the way and we are soon getting some roof windows fitted which will transform our tiny back bedroom into a workroom Kate can take over. But what is niggling away at me is whether I am equipped mentally for what is peering at me now, an end to our target-driven lifestyle when all the jobs are finished and all we have to look forward to is ‘normal’ life.

As I see it now, one of two things could happen. Either our whole personalities will change, the ‘ants in the pants’ will run away from us creating something new, something more in keeping with the populist view of our status, or else we will throw ourselves into new things, driving ourselves on into new adventures ever more bizarre and unlikely. Hmmm, I wonder which it will be.

Beinn an Tuirc

Deep inside the forest a long clearing between the trees continues ahead of us following roughly the same line as the rough forestry track that brought us here.

 Although the sun shines brightly and there is a fresh breeze blowing, here in the forest it is still and shaded so last night’s rain drips from the vegetation. We continue upwards, struggling through a thick blanket of sphagnum or peat moss, like walking on a layer of wet sponge. Growing through this is a coarse reed-like grass which reaches up to knee height, each blade being topped with a cluster of water droplets, so that as we pass by, our feet sinking into the spongy surface, the water transfers easily from the grass to our clothing making our legs wet and heavy, the cold seeping right through to the skin. Having climbed this far we can only press on upwards, slipping and sliding in the damp, stepping over hidden gullies where the water runs even more freely and stumbling over broken branches and small pink mushrooms. Somewhere up ahead we can see the wind-farm towers on the summit ridge beyond the forest, although these remain illusively distant, teasing us on.

We started out later than planned, following the Kintyre Way almost from our doorstep out of the village and along the shore path to Torrisdale.

A line of cormorants stands at the water’s edge catching up on some late season sunbathing so we try not to disturb them as we negotiate the rocks behind them.

We are at sea level but our plan for the day is to ascend Beinn an Tuirc, the highest summit on the Kintyre peninsula standing 454 metres (1,490 feet) above us.

It is close enough for us to begin the walk from our front door but the route is far from clear, no signposts point the way, so we must follow the forestry roads then do the best we can from there on up. The sun beats down as we ascend and the scenery opens up behind us, more and more of Arran’s mountains coming into view. Then we plunge into the dense forest where the air is motionless and all noise is sucked away by the trees. Between them there is deep shade, an impenetrable tangle of branches and moss-covered roots. Go only a few metres in and the trees swallow you up so you become disoriented with the uniformity around you, unsure which way to turn even to retrace your steps. We stay in a rough clearing between the trees, plodding ever upwards in the hope that sooner or later we will reach the upper edge of the tree line. Our legs are soaked below thigh level; we have reached the point where our feet cannot become any more wet so it matters little how deep are the streams we cross.

Each foot is pulled from the spongy moss with a sucking noise, the effort sucking our energy away and we have only our grim determination and the thought of lunch on the summit to keep us going.

At last we scramble out onto the open hillside where the going becomes a little easier. It is still very soft under foot – the amount of water lying trapped in what passes for soil here just beggars belief – but we pause to orientate ourselves and identify just where we have emerged from the forest in relation to our summit. We set off again, steeply upwards to where we can see sheep browsing the upper flanks of the mountain, finally gaining the summit trig point where the panorama is stunning (the wooden sign marked ‘Viewpoint’ is rather superfluous).

To the north-west beyond the wind-farm towers the Paps of Jura nudge the skyline and north of these are larger summits, maybe Ben Mor on the Isle of Mull or possibly even Ben Nevis further away still. South there is the faint outline of Rathlin Island in Northern Ireland and over across Kilbrannan Sound to the south-east we can make out the shape of the Mull of Galloway. East of us the Isle of Arran is spread out from end to end just like a map with fluffy clouds hovering over it and north of this there is Bute and Cowal. What a view!

The fresh wind is tempered by the sun’s heat but despite the stunning view this is not a place to hang about. It is mid afternoon and we have to choose a descent from the summit. There is no easy walking terrain hereabouts, no footpaths or waymarks to follow and to return the way we came is not appealing. So the choice is between a long walk over rough country along a ridge above Torrisdale but from which there is no clear descent path, or else we can follow the wind-farm service road, a longer roundabout route that leads onto a forest track lower down the valley above Saddell Water.

This is the route we choose, but it is a long march, and we know that we may be faced with a steep and dangerous descent yet and then finally a long walk once we do get back to our coast road.

The shadows are lengthening now and our legs are beginning to shout back at us as we pound along the forest track towards the sea. “No more”, they say, but as we round a corner we surprise a small herd of deer from their browsing and this encourages us on. Large birds of prey, buzzards we think, hover over the deep wooded valley to our right but our route stays high above this following the contours of the hillside. Then suddenly there is a sign we recognise, a waymarker for the Kintyre Way placed beside a track leading off to our left.

This is a surprise since we know we are not on the present KW route but we follow the signs just the same and soon find ourselves descending a freshly made path through an area of felled timber then across a burn and back into the forest itself. By following a series of flags attached to trees this finally leads us out of the darkness onto the very forest road we had used earlier in the day. We have discovered, by chance, a Kintyre Way diversion in the process of being built which has worked for us as a short cut back into Torrisdale. Great relief brings new energy to our legs for the last few miles back home. Our aching limbs are testament to perfect day - visibility as good as it gets and sunshine to boot. Before long this land will change into autumn then winter colours – this one tree is ahead of the pack – and we are now looking forward to the whole lot following suit.

Storms and fire raisers

Peering down through the conifers from the footpath above our village it strikes me just how isolated a community we are, something not unusual in Scotland where towns and villages can be located many hours travelling time away from a big city. So many live this way that the whole economy is geared to accommodate this. The fact that services in the many remote communities cost more per individual to provide than in a city is accepted as part of what living here is all about. To avoid population drift away from the countryside the Scottish government actively encourages re-population of the Highlands and Islands – to do otherwise might result in many of these communities stagnating and dying altogether – so we live here confident that we are not going to be forgotten.

We do not, it is true, live on an island but the length of the Kintyre peninsula does put us in a similar category to those who do. We are newcomers to this life but we are slowly learning the tricks needed to get around some of the difficulties that our remoteness creates. Running out of basic foodstuffs like bread and milk, for example, has to be anticipated. We keep a few cartons of milk in the freezer and our bread-making machine keeps churning out the loaves when we need them. So long as we remember to stock up with the right sort of flour when we do a supermarket trip and to buy extra milk, all is well. We keep stocks of what we need in the house and then make lists of things we need to buy to make the our shopping trips more productive. That, and also learning where to buy what we need from the limited choice available locally, is important, but if it is real choice we want then we must be prepared to travel to Glasgow. Good research on the Internet will tell us where the shops we need are located.

As I write this the wind is hooting down the chimney above our newly-opened up living room fireplace which waits for Robert-the-stove-fitter to come and install a compact multi-fuel stove. With the high winds and rain we are experiencing this is not the time to be climbing up on a rooftop so we must be patient. This is the second severe storm we have experienced since we moved to Carradale. Back in May, when the tree buds were just bursting and small leaves were beginning to form a blast of air came in from the west, gusts well over eighty miles an hour and salt-laden too, all of which caused widespread damage, not so much by knocking trees over (which it did) but by ‘burning’ the young leaf growth before it could get going. The effects of this, brown wrinkled leaves still clinging to the trees, have been with us all summer like a premature autumn.

This latest storm arrives after days of rain, heavy rain, which elsewhere might cause flooding and distress but here it merely disappears into the ground and runs away. In May we lost our electric power for several hours and again this time the lights flicker but they stay bravely on through the worst of the storm. It is unwise to venture out of doors when there is tree debris flying about and driving along wooded lanes carries a risk, however slight, of meeting an uprooted tree on its passage to earth, so we gaze from our windows as the trees bend before the blast and swathes of rain lash down. Unlike in May, the trees now carry a heavy leaf burden. In another month the trees will release their leaves but for now they still cling on to each one, against all the odds and irrespective of the harm this may cause the tree. Twigs snap and fly away downwind, whole branches are broken off but this eases the burden on the trunk which clings on to the shallow soil using every root and rootlet. Most violent are the gusts which drop on our house as it nestles low beneath Deer Hill. The glass in our windows creaks to these onslaughts, every blade of grass in the garden is flattened smooth and water briefly flows uphill in the gullies. It is exciting to watch from inside and the house is used to it - it doesn’t complain.

After a few days the storm passes away somewhere else, a remnant of hurricane Katia so we are told, and we get the telephone call we are waiting for.

Our stove fitter arrives armed with pipes and brushes to sweep the chimney then insert a steel flue liner and connect this to our stove. My part in this is ready - the stone slabs for the hearth I have been engaged on fitting over the past few days are smooth and level – but we watch in horror as his brushing dislodges an enormous pile of soot which descends and heaps up on our new hearth. On quick reflection though we feel far safer knowing that this lot is not still hanging up there out of sight.

Our excitement mounts as the day when we can light up comes ever nearer.

Even though we still have to tile and finish the fire surround we cannot wait any longer. We decide we need just the right important local person for first firing of the stove and who better than our neighbour Betty, who like us is a fan of a good coal fire to keep her home warm. We point her at the stove and seconds later the flames are licking up the chimney (it works!) and soon the warmth is filling the room and seeping through the house, just what we need for the winter ahead.

Life around Carradale

Just a few miles to the south of our village lie what few stones remain of Saddell Abbey, a monastic settlement established in the twelfth century by monks coming from what is now Northern Ireland.

Permission to build the abbey was needed, just as it would be today, and the story goes that this was granted by none other than Somerled, a powerful figure in the history of Scotland who after a significant battle in 1158 declared himself as the first ‘King of the Isles’. As such he ruled an independent kingdom which was subservient neither to Scotland nor indeed to the King of Norway whose influence was still strong in the Western Isles at this time. Although Somerled’s kingdom was short-lived his blood line still continues because as many as half a million people alive today can, according to the evidence of their DNA, claim him as an ancestor.

Although this is disputed by some, Somerled’s remains are said to be buried somewhere on the site of Saddell Abbey, something that gives these crumbling ruins something of an aura, despite their condition. The monastery did not survive to the present day, its fate is lost to history, and over the last two hundred or so years the site has been used as a graveyard, the gravestones peering out from every corner, even from within the bounds of the building remains themselves. Much of the stone from the original abbey has now gone, to be used in other buildings such as Saddell Castle where local tales tell of the bad fortune that this brings to those who stay there. Fortunately for the owners this does not appear to prevent holidaymakers coming to stay here, indeed they appear to make much of the tale to add to the cachet of the place.

Kate and I arrived here on our bikes after negotiating the five miles of road from our village, this being the horizontal distance we had to travel. The length of the journey, however, gives no impression of our movement in the vertical dimension. Both the beginning and the end of the journey are at sea level, as indeed are several other spots along the way and the problem is that each of these places are separated by high ground over which the road winds its merry way totally indifferent to the plight of those who try to ride a bicycle on its surface. To negotiate steep hills on a bicycle we change into our lowest gears but the fact is that the same amount of effort is required to ride uphill regardless of the number of gears a bike has. Then if the gears are too few in number and the hill too steep then there will come a point when the rider’s weight simply cannot push hard enough on the pedal to rotate the wheels and move the bike up the incline. This is a scientific fact few are aware of simply because they don’t cycle along the lanes around Carradale where most of the hills fall into this category.

Our real motive for visiting Saddell was to visit not the abbey but the beach which, aside from its outstanding natural beauty, was the setting for something even Somerled might have found entertaining.

This short strip of sand and pebble, dominated by the well maintained and classical features of the castle, was once the backdrop for a video made to accompany the UK’s best selling single of all time, ‘Mull of Kintyre’. In the song accompaniment is provided by the Campbeltown Pipe Band who were seen in the video marching along the Saddell shoreline beside the sea and being joined by Paul McCartney singing and playing his guitar. In subsequent verses of the song they are joined by local schoolchildren, many of whom may now be adults still living in the area – the song was released in 1977. In many ways the beach location would have been an obvious choice since it possesses so many of the vital ingredients needed – it is easy of access by road but secluded enough to remain undisturbed during the filming; it has the tall castle as a backdrop, a proper one with battlements all in good repair; there is spectacular scenery in every direction. It lacks, however, the most essential ingredient which is that the beach is not actually located at the Mull of Kintyre.

Having been to the Mull, of course, we know why this would not have been suitable for the video. It has no beach, it is a remote, inaccessible and windswept place often surrounded by fogs and it has no Disneyland-like castle to use as part of the backdrop. So perhaps history can forgive the deception. After all Saddell is on the Kintyre peninsula, so many would say it is is close enough to be authentic, and very few will ever know the truth anyway.

Home at last - job done!

Our delivery of Cirrus Cat to her new home was complete after we finished our passage of the Crinan Canal and then a day later tied her to a pontoon in Tarbert Harbour. What we started back at the beginning of July, launching the boat from a boatyard in Cornwall and sailing her anticlockwise around Britain to the west coast of Scotland, is now finished. Job Done!

On reflection, this was never going to be the most relaxed of sailing trips for us, largely because we always knew that the distance we had to cover was considerable, further in fact than we had ever previously sailed in one season. It was, first and foremost, a boat delivery trip and this was always in our minds. For this reason the trip never really became totally relaxing, it always had a more serious side to it, that of getting Cirrus close to home before the end of the sailing season. Setting off in July might have made the trip seem a little more pressured than it need have been but it did give us a wealth of new sailing experiences and a feeling of immense satisfaction over what we have achieved.

So was it worth it?

Well there were certainly a lot of fun moments and we do always feel very comfortable on board the boat – it is our home from home – so at no stage did we feel like giving up. What was most enjoyable was revisiting so many of the east coast harbours, places we visited in 2009 and many other places we have known for much longer. Once again we made friends along the way and met a lot of very charming people, preserving our good impressions of those that live in or around our coastal communities. On the downside, we did a little less sailing than we would have liked, making more use of the engine than we prefer to do because of the need to press on when the weather allowed us to do so. Along the way, as luck would have it, we managed to miss out on the best of the summer weather because by the time a heat-wave did arrive in the south of England, we were further north where we found cooler climes. But despite all this, yes, it was worthwhile doing the trip the long way round and we are secretly quite proud of what we have achieved.

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Having now moved from boat to house we find ourselves having to re-learn old skills and to cope with the strangeness of things.

Flushing the loo without operating a pump is a strange experience and watching television is an art we have seem to have lost somewhere along the way (we never could see the point of having one on board the boat). We struggle to find programmes that interest us enough to keep us in our seats. Outside I observe that the birds which visit our garden are puny specimens compared with those that soared past us at sea although they do make up for this lack of size by energetic movement undertaken at high speed. We are fortunate that the sea is not far from us here and it takes only a few minutes walking to put us back in a more familiar environment, amongst the rocks off Carradale Point where a gull sits patiently digesting its last meal.

As I scramble about over the sun-kissed lichen I notice a sea urchin waving its tentacles at me from just beneath the surface and I bend low to take its picture before spotting the yellow sponge-like creature cuddling up to it. These are the colours of nature at its best.

Cornwall to Scotland days 47 to 50

Day 47/48 – Our little adventure around the British Isles is almost over. We feel now that we are rapidly approaching the point at which we can say “That’s it, we’ve done it”. One issue still outstanding, however, is the small matter of deciding where Cirrus Cat will live permanently now that we have brought her to Scotland. Carradale Harbour (for those who don’t know it) is tiny and not suitable for us but there are plenty of other choices, marinas or moorings, to consider. Our brief couple of days back home have given us an opportunity to draw up some plans, even to begin thinking about where next year’s sailing season will take us.

It has been lovely to pop back to Carradale and meet up with our neighbours after so long away. Our outdoor life must have left us looking quite healthy – there have been a number of comments on this – and once again the warmth of the greetings is just great. Most surprising to us (who expect to do everything on the boat ourselves with little or no help from others) has been an offer of assistance from Brian and Audrey to help us with the locks on our transit of the Crinan Canal. This is no mean offer since most of the fifteen locks are operated manually by a vessel’s crew and the whole experience is a physical one, particularly for two people. It gets easier and quicker the more helpers you have, particularly if someone can go ahead and prepare the next lock before the boat leaves the last one.

After only one full day at home, mostly taken up with taming the garden vegetation before it overruns the house, we set off again, driving to Tarbert to take the first of only two buses to return to Dunstaffnage. This misses the most spectacular part of the journey, the views from the west coast of Kintyre, but it gets us back on board by mid afternoon and just before another brief rain shower lands on Cirrus’ decks.

Day 49 – We start our twenty-five mile passage to the start of the Crinan Canal just before the top of high water.

Timing here is quite critical because our route takes us through the notorious Sound of Luing where twice a day the water rushes first one way then the other at speeds which our boat finds hard to match. The trick here is to arrive at one end just as the tide begins to sweep our way, southbound, so that we are squirted through the narrow passage like water in a hose pipe. In reality this is a poor analogy because this land was shaped by giants and the Sound is at least a mile across at its narrowest point. Being in the middle of it we get no impression of the rate at which we are being carried along as

the only evidence is the whirlpools which form on the surface, driven by upwelling currents as if one of those giants is waving his hands about far below us. The depths in the Sound vary from sixty to less than ten metres and in one spot an underwater hummock rises to within less than three metres of the surface. All these irregularities can produce dangerous conditions and overfalls, especially when combined with the giant winds which frequently blow here. Once again timing and a good boat are essentials here.

At the southern end of the Sound lie the Isles of Scarba and Jura, between which is the Gulf of Corryvreckan, a place we peer into as we pass by, from a comfortable distance.

I try to stand in the way so that Kate cannot see through the narrow gap that causes all the fuss.

The wind has dropped and the sun has come out making it very hot, for a change, as we slip into the Crinan Canal and tie up for the night. It is still and quiet, the noisiest sound being made by the swallows which are out here in force for their evening meal of midges and other flying fodder.

Day 50 – Our Crinan lock operating team meet us at Bellanoch keen and eager to get started.

At the first lock they are ahead of us, smiling and waving us in, then they rush ahead to get the next one ready. Brian is on sluices, winding them open to let the water rush into the pound, while Audrey puts her back to the heavy lock gate which slowly closes behind us. These two are canal experts and work together as a well oiled machine. We cannot believe the rate we are moving through the canal. Surely this must be a record passage time? We have to rein them in for a lunch stop at Cairnbaan then it’s off to Ardishaig for the last few locks before we exit the canal there and wave them farewell. Many thanks for all your hard work guys.

Tonight we are swinging to a mooring at Otter Ferry on Loch Fyne. It is cool here now and overcast, threatening rain but as yet it holds off. This is a sheltered, secure place to spend the night, to rest up after all our lock-related activities.

Cornwall to Scotland days 44 to 46

Day 44 – Suddenly there is a new urgency to our movement westwards through the canal. Using the internet we have access to weather forecasts for the days ahead (we can see the future) and there are some strong winds ready to impale themselves on the west coast of Scotland over the next few days, nothing spectacular but enough to cause us to react by moving forward our plans to exit the canal.

We start early, motoring the length of the repetitively named Loch Lochy, then navigate the final man-made stretch of canal to the top of Neptune’s Staircase, an engineering masterpiece in the form of a flight of eight locks built back-to-back. In one swoop this transports us sixty-four feet (some nineteen metres) downhill towards the sea, all at the expense of a bit of muscle power as we tow Cirrus from one lock to the next, repeating this eight times in all until we arrive at the bottom. All along the way we are besieged by tourists whose cameras click and whirl (I know digital cameras don’t do this but I have an active imagination) as they photograph us and every movement of our strange craft - viewed from above our catamaran’s decks look like they belong on an aircraft carrier. Behind us the dark clouds build, finally dropping their load after we are safely berthed at Corpach, the sea lock exit of the canal.

 Day 45 – Once again we are up early, so early that when we emerge the morning mist is still hiding everything, but at least we are able to lock out and catch our tide down Loch Linnhe.

We motor on past Fort William as the mist gradually dissipates leaving just long scarves of white through which the mountains occasionally peep.

At the Corran Narrows the sky ahead has changed from grey to blue and there are ripples on the water but not enough wind to encourage sailing so we decide to do some exploring under motor, to weave our way behind the isles of Shuna and Lismore into the Lynn of Lorne. Islands and islets are dotted everywhere here as if scattered like seeds, dark, weed-covered rocks poke above the water, some having protective pillars erected on them, others crouching low and barely visible whereas all around there are grand mountains which sweep downwards to the water’s edge then continue out of sight deep below us. We are thrilled to be back here at last, in an area which we now regard as home.

Then, still in the Lynn of Lorn just before making a turn towards Dunstaffnage Marina where we intend to stop for the night we pass Rubha Fionn-aird, a low promontory with rocks lurking out of sight beyond the land which have caught out the skipper of the yacht ‘Tenacity’, a boat which had emerged from the canal with us earlier in the day. Taking a short cut here the yacht has run aground with the tide falling around it. A lifeboat stands by but the crew are not in any danger as the weather is benign. It is a long wait for the next high tide but we later learn that they get off safely, although not without some damage.

When we are safely berthed we make a quick decision that faced with strong winds for several days ahead we will leave the boat and travel home to Carradale for a few days. This may seem a strange thing to do but free bus travel encourages such behaviour, despite the distance, and it will give us the chance to check on the post waiting for us and to make sure everything in the house is well.

Day 46 – Our bus from Dunbeg is the first of four which, with waiting for connections, takes up most of the day. It occurs to us that this is not a lot faster than the speed we travel on the boat but it is somewhat less energetic; in fact we both have difficulty staying awake on the long ride south towards Campbeltown. We can see yachts in the sea out near Islay and the conditions don’t seem too bad for them but later on comes the rain and more wind so we are happy to have made the decision to make this trip home.

On arriving at the house our front ‘lawn’ is a little hairier than usual with some interesting botanical specimens peeping through the greensward and our front door is just a little difficult to open due to the mail hiding behind it but apart from all these small irregularities, all is well and we are soon relaxing watching TV with Brahms at the Proms. There’s nothing like home. Hot water comes out of the taps without any effort on our part, the floor stays perfectly still even when it is windy, it feels spacious inside and everything outside is green green green.