Published in Scotland Magazine Issue 8 on 17/5/2003.

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On the crest of a wave

MAXWELL MACLEOD SHARES THE SECOND INSTALMENT OF HIS ADVENTURE ON THE CALEDONIAN CANAL

It’s great finally to get in the sailing record books. Yep, I made it. Single-handed across Scotland in winter in a 21-foot sailing yacht. Probably the last yacht of the 2002 season to make the 60-mile loch and canal run from Fort William to Inverness. Ellen MacArthur shift over. Wha’s yer Sir Francis Chichester noo? Now I can die happy.

Stay-at-home kind of folks might ask why I was nuts enough to make the 60-mile trip in the middle of November, given that I have a perfectly good road trailer to take my 40-year-old 21-foot up to her Inverness wintering yard. I certainly thought I had made a wee error in judgement when I woke up on that secondday of the epic voyage, tied up to the aluminium jetty at the wee village of Fort Augustus, exactly halfway up the canal. It was pishing it down, Lochaber sunshine by the gallon.

Mind you, Fort Augustus is a great wee village, one of half-a-dozen gems bisected by the 150-year-old canal, and in the summer months it is well-served with cycle tracks and boat trips and shops and pubs and all kinds of utter nonsense.

But it was wet that morning. And cold. And windy. I mean, we’re talking force sevens here, even eights.

It had not been a pleasant night. What am I talking about? It had been an utterly hellish night. There must have been folks sleeping out on the pavements of Bombay being snuffled at by rabid dogs who had had better.

My first problem that night had been what to wear. Now, you see, when you are sleeping in a wee boat in the.....

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By Maxwell MacLeod

Section : Outdoor Scotland

Page number : 77