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.