We sailed to Peterhead today, again good wild life with dolphins, porpoises, basking shark, seals, puffins and cliffs with thousands of birds nesting on them. The wind slowly built from force 1 to force 4 and with a flat sea we took a short Coastal route going over the overfalls at Rattray Head without any problems. We have now said goodbye to Sue and Alison and welcomed Clare, John an Tim. Last week was very different in the canal and a good break from the lon...

Neil left after 2 weeks onboard and will be missed by us all. Today was a great day of down, yes down wind sailing. Set off from Inverness at 8:30 for 60 mile trip east up the Morray Firth. Good day for wild life as Morray is nature sanctuary. We saw dolphins, seals, a shark or small whale which was probably a basking shark. Arrived in Whitehills which is a tiny harbour with a very tight entrance. The harbour master was very friendly and gave us advice on the ni...

Slowed down over last 2 days. Yesterday had engine preventative maintenance done and today stuck waiting for tide to rise so we can exit the canal into the sea at Inverness. Typing this whilst waiting for the washing to do!! Weather has been grey and occaisional showers, we expect this to continue for a couple more days as we make our way east towards Peterhead.

Spent last night in Fort Augustus, named after the second son of George 2nd who was the "butcher" Duke of Cumberland. We visited the visitor centre which explained how Telford built the canal including educating the locals on how to make wheels which they were incapable of doing until he showed them! After descending the flight of locks we entered Loch Ness. The wind came up to a force 5 on the nose so tacked up the entire loch. We were considering anchoring off...

Up for an 8 o'clock start, ambitiously decided on shorts and T-shirt. The lock keeper was spraying his head with mosquito repellant and the crew on one of the other boats had a head net covering head and face. It started raining so ended up covered from head to toe. After initial double lock we entered Neptune's staircase which is a flight of 8 locks. The crew pulled Javelin all the way up so by 10:30 coffee and Mars bars were the order of the day. We have just e...