We’ve actually been back aboard Toodle-oo! for 2 weeks now 😊 !

Our first week consisted of doing loads of chores while in our lockdown berth in Newcastle’s excellent ‘Royal Quays’ marina… Laurie completed a load of finicky varnishing – around the hatches and the companionway, while I tackled a major re-plumbing of the head – which proved to be considerably more involved than I had imagined. We also did a thorough clean up and waxed the topsides – which involved doing one side first, turning the boat around and then doing the other side. The only problem there being the turning around part – which involved nearly crashing three times! Thankfully a close neighbor came to our rescue – and then wonderfully blamed the whole escaped on the sudden wind shifts!

Our berth was adjacent to David Scott Cowper’s exploration boat, Polar Bound – who is trying, this year, to complete the North West Passage for the umpteenth time, doing a particularly challenging route apparently. It was great to spend an evening with him and partner Jane aboard Toodle-oo! and hear of all their exploits aboard Polar Bound and previously making record breaking circumnavigations aboard sailboats. David is currently preparing a boat for the 2022 Golden Globe (when he’ll be 82!) – single handed circumnavigation in a boat of similar vintage to the original race’s winner – Sir Robin Knox Johnson.

Our 2020 plans were to head north to Scotland, through the Caledonian canal then south by way of the Isles of Scilly, Spanish Rias and then on to the Algarve coast of Portugal for the winter.

We finally bade farewell to Newcastle on August 1^st and sailed in light winds up the Northumbrian coast to Newton – a strange little anchorage close by Dunstanburgh castle – which obviously saw some serious battle in it’s time! The anchorage is tucked behind a reef – which protects it from the North Sea swell – at all but high tide – when it rocks and rolls for an hour or so! It took us three attempts to set the anchor on a very rocky bottom, but we succeeded and ended up sharing the anchorage with three other boats – the close one being new friends Peter and Sue on Shuuper.

We had planned to meander up the Northumbrian coast for several days on the way up to Scotland – but in the end Newton was our only Northumbrian overnight – the other anchorages we had thought of were likely to be rather rolly, so instead, we sailed up to the Farne Islands where we anchored for just a few lunchtime hours among all the sea birds, before heading overnight to the Moray Firth. Sadly, that passage was a massive motor-fest with the expected winds not materializing one bit. We were so slow that we were unable to enter Whitehills Harbour where we’d stayed in 2014 because the tide had dropped too low – so we continued on to a lovely anchorage at Sandend – which put us in a good position to sail into Inverness the following day.

Unfortunately, while we’d timed our entry to Inverness well – with respect to tides – we got snookered by the railway bridge and so were not allowed to enter the canal on arrival, but instead had to take a berth at the nearby Inverness Marina.

 

 

The following morning we made our way into the canal – locking through with a small sailboat – Swedish Mermaid and made our way up the flight at Muirtown and finally into Loch Ness – where the wind was howling and in our face – so we ended up coming back to the wee Loch before – Loch Dochfour and anchoring there.

 

 

 

 

 

Yesterday we motored down Loch Ness on a windless sunny day and arrived in Fort Augustus for a well earned pint or two!

 

 

 

 

Tomorrow we’ll continue on our canal trip and get as far as we can while the lock keepers are on reduced hours…