Oban to Corpac/Caledonian Canal

From Oban to Inversness

 We departed Kerrera Marina first thing in the morning the 20.06 to sail up to Corpac,
the entry to the Caledonian Canal. Our aim was to have the tide with us all the way up and get into the sealock at high tide. It was a fantastic clear and lovely morning.

Lynn of Lorne (main land)

Motoring up the Lynn of Lorne on the inside of Lismore island and out to Loch Lynnhe past the island of Shuna was very nice. Passing the narrows at Corran we got some following wind
to help us the remaining 7 NM up to Corpac.

Current as tide was going in.

The light house at Corran point

Corran ferry

 

We were allowed into the sealock after 10 minutes waiting and motored up to a pontoon berth to rest up untill next morning.

The pontoon is at the start of the lock system that would take us up 36 meters through a system of  7 consecutive locks, bearing the name Neptunes staircase.

We were locked in the next morning as the only boat. They got a problem with swingbridges that had been closed while waiting for 3 more boats to join us. We ended up being the only boat going up that morning. 

Grete busy rope handling in the locks.

We found a berth at a pontoon at Banavie, located at the top of the locks.
We both felt like resting up 2-3 days there before moving on.
During our stay  we had an amatuer radio friend of Geir, Gaute, LA2BSA visiting us.
He was doing a trip of Scotland on his BMW motorcycle.

Gaute, LA2BSA (left) in my "shack"

The trip from Banavie took us to Fort Augustus, stopping for one night at Laggan and Cullocky locks.
We spent 2 nights on the pontoon on top of the locks in Fort Augustus.
Fort Augustus was as usual filled with tourists. We had Haggis and tatties at the Bothy Restaurant &Bar

Haggis, neeps and tatties

 We were locked down to Lock Ness in the morning of June 27th. We pushed on to reach the locks at Muirtown flight in Inverness - before closing time which was 1645 local time. We made it and was locked down to Seaport Marina. We filled up our diesel tank for the North Sea crossing 2 days later.

Bangor to Oban

Track fra Bangor to Oban

 

Bangor marina had new owners and the berth cost us 37 GBS a night. 2 years ago we paid 25 GBP,s.
We departed Bangor already the day after for a 23 hour voyage to Oban.

We left at 12 on the outgoing tide and enjoyed good wind from the south and the tide going from S to N.
We made very good progress with winds up to 25+ knots from the stern. The wind increased as we
passed the islands of Isla and Jura, but it was mostly from the west and the sea was quite calm.
When we sailed into The sound of Kerrera towards Oban the wind decreased a bit and enough to
allow us to negotiate a well filled marina at Kerrera where we had booked a berth online.

That berth was still occupied (we arrived early morning) so we found a vacant space.
Going in fast and with a quick reacting crew (Grete) to tie us up,
got us alongside between two other boats even if it was a tight fit.

Kerrera marina

Kerrera marina had new ownerssince we werethere in 2019. They were a a family from England and they had got the all the facilities done up and the restaurant was up and running.We had a very nice fish and shellfish meal. Very nice food and a great bottle of white wine.

The weather forecast for the coming days did not allow us to push on up the west coast as we had planned. We had to reach Norway by the 24.06 as we were attending our granddaughters wedding.

It was a very hard decission to make, but the weather and lack fysical strength didn't allow us to push on. So we decided to buy a license to sail through the Caledonia Canal up to Inverness. 

2 week license for the Caledonia Canal.

From Inverness it's 350 NM to our homeport in Farsund, Norway.

Bantry Bay to Bangor, Northern Ireland

Route from Bantry Bay to Bangor

We left Lawrence Cove on Sunday the 12th June bound for Bangor in Northern Ireland.
The first day was fine with winds from WSW giving s good speed along the south coast.
We passed many placed we would have liked to visit, but we still had hopes reaching Norway
the June the 24th, so we pushed on. 

Passing north of Fastnet Rock

 

Rounding the SE of Ireland wind died and the current
was against us. We learned that picking the right route and time is vital. We struggeled very hard
to gain speed outside Roslaire in rather shallow water, where the tide ran fast and we had a COG of less that 1 knot.
We may have had less going furter out. But when the tide turned we were blessed with water running north again and we saw 7-8 knots of COG at times. On the last few miles we also had the tide with us giving us a COG of 9-10 knots. We arrived Bangor marina the 15.06.

Aproaching Bangor

 

Horta to Ireland

 

Route from Horta to SW Ireland

We departed from Horta 21st of May. The first 2 days was forecasted to be light to no wind.
We motored to the NW to join a wind system that would come from SW and give us a good push northwards between 10-20 knots. It slowly veered to S, the SE and then E, sometimes ENE and increasing to 25 knots. We tried to keep our course towards SW Ireland, but the wind pushed us towards the west.  

In the morning of 31st of May we were at the latitude abreast SW Ireland, the wind eased off
and we started the engine to motor due east. We had spent quite a lot of diesel already and we had to motor very economically not to run out. We were then 350NM west of Bantry Bay.

We set our sight for Lawrence Cove marina on the island of Bere.
We sent them an email requesting berth and diesel and was granted both.

After 12 hours motoring we finally started to get some wind from the NE which slowly turned N the NW and increased. We could turn of the engine and sailed all the way into Bantry Bay. 

Sailing into Bantry Bay in a pretty sunset.

 

Another one

We arrived in pitch dark at 2AM the 4th of June and we moored at a visitors mooring just outside the marina. The approach to the marina is narrow and shallow and we sailed in the following morning.

Ocean Viking alongside in Lawrence Cove marina.

Bere island is a small community with 200 inhabitans. There was a small shop/cafe and a PUB/Bar with very limited opening times.
We also used the time there to visit the nearest town, Castletown-Bere which was on the mainland 30 minutes by the ferry. The town is the busiest fishery port in Ireland and there were lots of Irish, Spanish, French boats in the port. We spent the night there at a small B&B and enjoyed a good night out.
Next day we did some shopping for our coming voyage up to Scotland. We were horrified for the prices of foods. The economy has certainly gone bad as the result of the war in Ukraine.