Negotiating the Caledonian Canal could not be easier with all of the Locks attended by helpful staff and with regular pre-emptive exchanges on Ch 74, the locks are often made ready for your arrival. Overnight moorings on pontoons are available and included within the transit fee. Although the weather was variable, the scenery was STUNNING.

One of the staff in Whitehills had been very knowledgeable about the canal and helpfully annotated the ‘Skippers Guide’ with insights and advice. Using this, our whole experience was significantly enhanced. We were able to find a superb family restaurant at our first overnight stop in Dochgarroch which turned out to be charmingly eclectic, with none of the furniture or crockery matching. It did not have a liquor license but having been forewarned, we were prepared and took our own wine with no corkage charge!

The first section of the canal leads into Loch Ness which at over 20 miles in length is a passage in itself with no real stops available.

At the western end of Loch Ness is Fort Augustus and a flight of locks. (see the video of Loch Ness and the Fort Augustus https://youtu.be/FTq6DebjQyM in the web site) We found the very well positioned ‘Lock Inn’ in the evening after mooring at the top of the flight of locks. The following day we moored at picturesque Gairlochy after sailing down Loch Lochy.

I was reminded overnight to remember to always moor with the bow into the breeze as, with stern to and a considerable fetch, the ripples under the counter drove my wife to seek peace elsewhere in the yacht!

After descending the spectacular ‘Neptune’s Staircase’ of 8 locks (see the video https://youtu.be/uHLnEcg4U9I in the ‘video’ section of the web site) at Fort William, we were once again grateful for the annotations on our chart, booking the superficially unattractive Lochy Bar in Cao for what turned out to be an excellent and inexpensive meal.

It was just as well that we had booked as the restaurant was full of ladies ‘of a certain age’ taking advantage of the ‘early bird’ deal of a meal for £4.45!

Exiting the sea loch at Corpach, we carried the tide but, with little wind, we motored down Loch Linnie to moor in Oban Marina, opposite the town on the island of Kererra. The internet reviews of the ‘Waypoints’ restaurant (a wooden shed) in the Marina were sufficient to keep us on the island and we were not disappointed enjoying another excellent meal.

With Paula and our friends flying out of Glasgow in the evening and the new crew flying in the following morning, it seemed easier, quicker and even cheaper to hire a car and stay over in an hotel rather than leave them to the vagaries of the rail service. This also gave us the whole day to gently take the scenic route through the Highlands, stopping for refreshments with wonderful vistas outside in the warm sunshine.

We had planned this coming week to ‘trial’ the crew for next year’s big adventure, flying the Parasailor, commissioning the unused water maker and making overnight passages to the outer islands but fate has struck a cruel blow. Bob has found that the offer of a post retirement consultancy involving 3 weeks in Kuala Lumpur and Nepal was too lucrative to ignore and Barry, having been delayed in France returned to a mountain of work and customers baying for his attention so, it is just down to me and Stephen for the week.

It is time to review the weather, crew change options and to plan ahead accordingly. It would be an awful shame to curtail the west coast island experience but I have the memories of having been here before. Whatever the decisions, prudence must reign supreme.

Our early start from Port Edgar promised sufficient wind on the quarter to ‘play’ with the new Parasailor but after a couple of fruitful hours, the wind died away and we had to resort to the engine to maintain our speed for the lock gate deadline at Arbroath. This being the home of the ‘smokey’’ we were obliged to sample this speciality in a dockside restaurant. While I found the experience reasonably enjoyable, Dave struggled with it all night and most of the next day. He did manage to maintain his constitution, probably for fear of ridicule had he not, he being a retired Merchant Navy Captain.

The 64 mile passage to Peterhead was exceptionally fast and thrilling with a beam reach in F6 gusting 7 under full main and jib. This sail plan proved to be well within the 135’s scope, the extended third rudder helping to keep her tracking in ‘the groove’ effortlessly all day long.

We had passed by Aberdeen with dozens of the peculiarly shaped rig supply ships anchored off and Peterhead was also busy with these vessels, the Harbour Master clearing our entry and exit amongst the comings and goings.

With a host of options for shelter along this coast and two more stops before Inverness and the Caledonian Canal, we chose the only two which registered 3 rosettes in the almanac for ambience. The first of these was Whitehills where we would wait for the return of Bob who had popped home from Edinburgh returning to Aberdeen airport and taking a bus to Whitehills. The Harbour Master had been very helpful by Email, answering my berth enquiry at 5.30am and he asked us to call 15 minutes before arrival. This we did and were greeted by Bertie Milne snapping photographs as we approached and entered the tiny harbour.

Once we had moored, he handed over a memory card asking us to return it when we had copied the pictures onto our computer. This quite amazing service (he tries to photograph the approach of all visiting yachts) continued throughout our stay and he couldn’t have tried harder. In fact this was a feature of everyone we encountered in Whitehills (pretty typical of the whole coast actually) and it was a really memorable destination. One of the staff spent some time with us, giving advice about the best mooring places on the Caledonian Canal.

A short 22 mile hop to Lossiemouth the following day was started in thick fog and a light headwind necessitated motoring, we entered as the visibility improved.

Our passage west to Inverness provided another spirited sail with the wind just behind the beam. We discussed the phenomenon whereby the forecabin seems colder than the rest of the yacht on passage. Dubiously referring to half forgotten physics, we concluded that the likely cause is that the continual spray across the bow cools the cabin as it extracts the ‘latent heat of evaporation’ as it dries. The things we talk about on passage !

I had fitted a new pennant onto the lifting arrangement for the swing keel over the winter and the fixing onto the keel had slipped. Although it held up, I felt the situation needed addressing so we lifted in Inverness Marina, had a hose off, sorted the problem, and relaunched to continue our passage through the lock and into the Caledonian Canal.

All of the harbours visited since Lowestoft with the exception of Newcastle and Blyth had depth issues and we would certainly not have been able to enjoy such a varied number of interesting destinations without the variable draft qualities of the Southerly.

So we moored safely in Seaport Marina, just inside the Caledonian Canal, Bob and Dave took the train back south while I had a most enjoyable (!) haircut in the station barbers. My wife and our friends Lucy and Graham joined the crew having flown up to Inverness from Heathrow.  Graham fell in twice when they joined us for the half term week last year so with 29 locks to negotiate, it could be interesting !

Torrential rain provoked a preference for contact lenses over glasses for our passage back down the Tyne and out to sea. The Tyne is probably much cleaner than in the past but it was a dark brown colour and we have seen this feature in other non-industrial rivers along this coast so it must be something to do with peat run off from the moors. We saw fishermen along its banks so it can’t be too polluted although we didn’t see any fish caught!

In northerly winds there was nothing for it but to motor the short distance up the coast to spend the night in the marina in Blyth.

The approach is uninspiring but it has the benefit of offering all tide access and, tucked into the corner of the commercial port is the Royal Northumberland Yacht Club marina.

Their clubhouse is a Victorian wooden ex light ship built in 1879. This vessel has an 8 inch thick hull and is, apparently, the only surviving wooden light ship. It houses a comfortable bar with excellent beer and we enjoyed a very generous Sunday lunch at dinner time for £5.50 !

Our passage up the coast to Amble was under engine and notable only for the sightings of seals and puffins. We took the passage inside Coquet Island and crept over the sill into the Marina. Although the marina tries hard, the town is average at best and to find any redeeming quality, we had to walk along the banks of the river Coquet to the pretty town of Warkworth with its’ ruined castle and creamy sandstone High Street.

We left Amble as soon as there was sufficient depth to clear the sill and with very little wind, we were resigned to motoring along the coast. I am always wary inshore with the proliferation of pot markers, especially at slack water when the tethering rope floats to the surface. This lesson was learned many years ago at slack water in the Chenal du Four. In my cabin off watch, I rose to a commotion on deck to discover a pot marker wedged under our rudder. Having released it, I was chastising the crew for not keeping a proper look out when they said they had been about 100m from the marker buoy, ‘nearly as far away as that one’, pointing at another marker which then started rushing towards us to adopt the same position, wedged behind the rudder. Fortunately, on my lifting keel Parker, the rudder was transom hung and swivelled up so the rope was easily released and no harm was done but a valuable lesson learnt.

Northumberland is rich in ruined Castles and Abbeys and we passed by Dunstanburgh and Bamburgh Castles, passed inside the Farne Islands where the Venerable Bede spent time as a hermit and anchored in the lee of Lindisfarne on Holy Island.

With less than 5 knots of wind the next day, we had no option but to motor again, heading for the tiny harbour at Dunbar where we would have to dry out against the harbour wall.

From the south, one has to pick up a transit between rocks and head towards the rocky shore with absolutely no sign of a harbour entrance, in fact Dunbar harbour entrance does not open to view as there is a dog leg in the narrow entrance and, with a swell, it is probably the most unsighted and perilous entry I think I have ever experienced.

The Harbour Master was very welcoming and even offered to drive us to the out of town supermarket for provisions but we spent a nervous night with a surge finding its way into the harbour. I took the precaution on leaving of radioing generally to any approaching vessels as it would have been unthinkable to meet a fishing boat in the blind entrance.

A light headwind necessitated another day under engine alone and we had a pleasant passage inside Bass Rock with its intense colony of gannets and on up the Firth of forth, past Edinburgh.

It says something about the ‘hardy scots’ when, fully togged up in our ‘oillies’, we passed a sailing school dinghy with the instructor in shorts and a T shirt! Unfortunately Granton Harbour was closed to us due to dredging operations and we had to pass under both magnificent bridges to Port Edgar which has been fashioned out of an old Naval Base and is actually well served with marine services and chandlery housed in the old Naval buildings.

Friday was a ‘lay day’ and we took the train into Edinburgh to visit the Castle and Britannia, meeting up with friends of our Scottish crew, Bob. With the need to press on to the Inverness rendezvous with Paula at the start of half term, Bob and David were unceremoniously ‘kicked off’ early on Saturday morning having been joined, once again by ‘Captain Cooke’ for the passage North.

Following the family wedding and a couple of rugby games, it was time to return to Hejira on the Spring Bank Holiday Monday. Andrew Gosling very kindly drove all 4 of us to Lowestoft and we are all extremely grateful for his kindness.

The crew for this leg was Peter Hoade, Bob Haywood and Tom Witham, all significantly older than most of my earlier crew.

Our lunch time arrival enabled a meal in the Royal Norfolk & Suffolk Yacht Club and victualling in the nearby Asda. A 3am departure to facilitate a ‘top of the tide’ entry into Wells next the Sea, 56 miles up the coast demanded an early night. It would have been better, when I called the Harbour Master, first thing in the morning, if I had remembered that we were in Lowestoft and not Great Yarmouth but we managed to sort that out between us but with me feeling a bit of an idiot – well it was very early! Dawn saw us romping up the coast with a fresh wind behind the beam and it was to be an enjoyable sail. Although it was ‘tide assisted’, we recorded a satisfying 9.8 knots at one stage! Luckily we had a phone signal and I received a phone call from the Lowestoft Yacht Club informing me that I had not paid the full fee for berthing and I was able to make a credit card payment for the balance over the phone – another embarrassment! Entry into Wells is somewhat tortuous and with the neap tides, it would not have been possible without the variable draft capability of the Southerly. Once safely within the calm channel, off the beach huts, we opened a nice bottle of red wine to breath on the saloon table, ready for our arrival. We didn’t expect to be overtaken, at speed, by a wind farm service boat which threw up such a wash as to tip the bottle onto the cabin sole, what a waste ! We enjoyed an excellent meal ashore in a restaurant run by the wife of a local fishermen – whelks will never be maligned again. Wells-next-the-Sea was a very enjoyable stop-over with helpful, friendly harbour staff. The visitor pontoon was meant to be ‘all tide’ but we actually grounded the bow onto a rough bottom which did inflict some damage, apparently dredging is ongoing… It was a delight to be paid a visit by my brother Hedley (formerly a regular crew member) and his family who live nearby and we enjoyed ‘catching up’ with them all.

The following day the high tide was at midday and with over 100 miles to Whitby, we would have to sail overnight. With the wind on the beam and gusting to F7 it was a lively but hugely enjoyable sail with 2 reefs in the main.

The proliferation of wind farms all along this coast is remarkable and the AIS is really helpful as we were able to identify the support vessels and call them to establish the extent and regulations regarding the farms under construction. There were little more than stumps sticking out of the sea but we had to stay well clear because of divers apparently operating in the area.

Our impressive speed saw us off Whitby before dawn and a call to the Whitby watch-keeper identified that it was again necessary to lift the keel to clear the shallows at the entrance. Moored off the bridge waiting pontoon, we resisted the appeals to enter the marina upstream of the bridge explaining that we intended to leave before dawn the next day.

The fabled Whitby Abbey ruins and grounds were very charismatic at the top of the hill and apparently the inspiration for Bram Stokers Dracula novel. We enjoyed our short stay and it is definitely a must when making passage along this east coast, I wish we could have spent longer absorbing the friendly atmosphere.

The crew this week have been blessed with ideal sailing conditions and our 50nm passage up to Newcastle was a close reach in flat water. Entry into the Tyne between North and South Shields was straightforward and although we were expecting to see wholesale industrial dereliction, it was surprising to see apparent vibrant commercial activity all along the Tyne. The regeneration of the area around the Millennium Bridge where we moored is impressive in that they have retained many of the old buildings and integrated new buildings to produce an original feel to the ‘Old Town’.

Visiting the ‘Crown Posada’ pub was like going back in time with the stained glass windows and even records playing on an old gramophone.