Saturday 21 July 2012
Filled up with fuel and set off for Ardrishaig, which is the start of the Crinnan Canal. Cathy, at the Sea Lock told us about the Assisted Passage they were offering through the canal. I thought it would be good to give it a try but Gordon was a bit dubious about it and thought we should just pay for a pilot to help us through, however they insisted that there would be assistance at each lock so we decided to give it a go and made arrangements for that to happen next day. Spent the night in the Ardrishaig basin and had an early night in preparation of our trip through the canal the next day.
Sunday 22 July 2012
Set off in a bit of a rush as Cathy originally said they would take our lines through lock 2 in about 45 minutes, however, ten minutes later she said “right Camira we are ready for you now”. So as usual, we got ready in jig time and set off, not wishing to upset the apple cart. However, we were in with another two boats with huge and I mean huge sterns, which incidentally, they were not very good at controlling. We ditched them after a couple of locks and a few expletives from Gordon in favour of travelling with another two boats. This was much better as one of them was a bit smaller………………….. Then the shenanigans started. The assisted Passage seemed to end from lock 5 to lock 11 and if it were not for one of the other boats we picked up on the way, having four teenagers on board, it would have been a bit of a disaster. Notwithstanding the whole transit was a bit of a trial for us. We had engine failure four times, so, swiftly pulled out the kedge anchor in case we needed to throw it off the back of the boat, thankfully we didn’t but on a few occasions we glided into the locks with no power at all. When we thought it couldn’t get any worse, while in one of the locks, our stern line got snagged on the cleat and the stern of the boat wasn’t going down in time with the water pouring out of the lock. A hasty dive into the cabin for the knife and a swift swipe at the rope by Gordon and we were free. Well, in a manner of speaking, we were then left with the problem that the back of the boat has a will of its own in a lock with another two boats where the owners are frantically trying to hold you off whilst giving you sympathetic looks.
We moored up on a pontoon on the canal but then decided to go into Bellanoch Basin Marina and steal, for want of a better word, someone’s berth as we would have shore power to dry our clothes. Oh yes, I forgot to say it was raining as well for most of the day. We didn’t get settled for another couple of hours as we had visions of the berth holder coming back in and asking us to move. He didn’t and it took till about 21.30 and some Gin for Gordon to start to relax.
Tomorrow is a pretty awful day, mist and all sorts, so we are spending the day in the canal and having a look at fuel filters and other such things to see if we can sort out the engine problem. Hopefully we will have a good night sleep and feel a lot better than we do tonight. Goodnight from him and goodnight from her.
We spent another two nights in the Canal. We were asked over for drinks to another boat called Rhumor,who had travelled through with us.The owners Lindsay and Terry were very hospitable and we had a nice evening chatting over a glass or two of wine.
Next day Gordon cleaned the fuel filter & bled the system in the hope that it was that that gave us the problems, I went for a run along the canal, yes that’s me in the distance.
On my way back I spotted Andy Taylor in the Marina, he is the guy who put Gordon through his Day Skipper, so we went along to his boat, Brandy of Troon for a coffee and to meet his wife Brenda.
