Inverness was a great stop before our trip down the Caledonian Canal. In our last few days there we toured the beautiful Ness Islands and more of the canal by bike, stocked up on provisions, and got some local knowledge on cruising the canal from Paisley residents Pamela and Neil White. Below are trip highlights…
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Kyle of Lochalsh
Picturesque Eilean Donan Castle, linked to the mainland with an elegant stone bridge, is one of Scotland’s most photographed castles. The castle was built in the 13th century and restored in the 19th after it was destroyed during the 18th-century Jacobite rebellions. We took the scenic train ride from Inverness to the Kyle of Lochalsh,…
First View to the Caledonian Canal
Our plan to return to southern Scotland via the Caledonian Canal was put together while we were still in Daytona, Florida in February of this year. So we’ve been looking forward to it for a long time. Since the canal is only a short distance from Inverness, we took the bikes over for a preview…
Inverness Arrival
Inverness, founded around the 12th century, is the capital city of the Scottish Highlands and a gateway to the Caledonian Canal. We arrived after an easy three-hour run from Cromarty Firth, and spent a great afternoon exploring this historic town along the River Ness. Below are highlights from October 7th, 2018 in northern Scotland. Click…
Cromarty Firth
Following an early-morning departure from the Orkney Islands, we rode the current south to Cromary Firth and found ourselves in an oil rig graveyard. With oil prices declining over the past few years, many North Sea oil companies have reduced production and towed some rigs to the protected harbor at Cromarty Firth. Some have a…
St. Margaret’s Hope
St. Margaret’s Hope is the terminus for the fast ferry Pentalina between mainland Scotland and the Orkney Islands. The bay also is an excellent anchorage, with plenty of swing room, good wind protection and convenient bus access to the towns of Kirkwall and Stromness. We very much enjoyed the anchorage, especially after the ordeal of…
Stromness
Stromness, on Mainland in the Orkney Islands, was once a major provisioning stop for Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC) ships heading to and from Canada, and a major source of labour for the company. By the late eighteenth century, three quarters of the HBC’s Canadian workforce were from the Orkney Islands. The town has real character,…
Neolithic Orkney
The Heart of Neolithic Orkney UNESCO World Heritage Site consists of four prehistoric monuments dating to some 5,000 years ago. They include the ancient settlement of Skara Brae, the Maeshowe chambered tomb, and two ceremonial stone circles: the Standing Stones of Stenness and the Ring of Brodgar. After freeing our ensnarled anchor at Widewall Bay,…
St. Mary’s Bay
In October of 1939, the German U-boat U-47 crept into Scapa Flow through Kirk Sound and sunk the British battleship Royal Oak. To protect Scapa Flow, Winston Churchill, then First Lord of the Admiralty, ordered the construction of barriers across the eastern side of Scapa Flow. 66,000 locally cast concrete blocks were dropped onto a…
Managing Fuel Quality
When we left Seattle on our trip around the world, we were expecting fuel quality issues to be common and carried 48 Racor 900 fuel filters. Surprisingly, we used less than ten on the entire trip. Most of the fuel we got world-wide was surprisingly good. We did encounter some minor fuel quality issues, but…
