SV Ostinato: Replacing the Prop, Plans X, Y and Z

June 23 Fort William on the Caledonian Canal

I'm sitting here as King and grandchildren, Julia and George, are making me a birthday cake....pineapple upside-down cake, my favourite. Today is the last day of their time with us. What a wonderful visit we have had. I will miss them terribly......but I get ahead of myself. I had decided to skip the gory details concerning the lost prop and simply say I would of had more fun in an alligator swamp in Florida during August....but King has insisted that I at least hit the high points or should I say low points.

June 7

Thank goodness for the Sea Scouts

After the Sea Scouts pulled us to the quay, King began his research on what prop to purchase. Let me just say that he had at least 5 suppliers in 3 countries vying to remove obscene amounts of money from us to supply our shinny new prop. This will be no surprise to those of you that know him and his talent for finding "the deal". In the meantime he conjold the Lock Master into searching the bottom of the lock with their underwater camera. The camera was of questionable ability so expectations were low and no one was terribly disappointed when they came up empty handed. As a result of the effort, they also called off a planned review of all the locks using same camera.

June 8-14

George gets into the act

Julia and George with a new friend

King finally settled upon Bronson props instead of the original Gori. Yes, I said "props" plural. We have never been happy with the Gori's performance or its expensive and hard to attach zincs. They are double the cost of the Bronson so we went for a matching pair. While awaiting their arrival we picked up our 2 beautiful grandchildren at the Edinburgh Airport and spent a few days investigating multipe castles, standing stones, and Bonnie Prince Charlie's last battle ground.

The props arrived Thursday morning right on scheduled. By then, along with half the population of Inverness, we had made and discarded multiple plans for how we would get the prop on once it actually arrived. Diving is prohibited in the canal plus the water is freezing so that eliminates that option, As of Thursday the plan was to move to a marina outside of the canal where we would squeeze the back end of Ostinato into a lift that is too small for us. Basically they would pick up only our back decks just enough to raise the sail drives out of the water so King could slap the prop on. I didn't say it was a good plan. These were desperate times and any half backed idea was worthy of discussion. Tony, a local sailor, was recruited to give us an extra hand through the locks and at the marina. To get us there, King strapped the outboard dinghy engine to the sugar scoop, made our grandson, George, the rear helmsman and we made for the first lock. Winds were gusting to plus 20 so let me just say it was not pretty. The lock keepers do not care for spring lines so without both engines we bounced around both locks like a pinball machine. Now, in addition to our prop, chunks of our bow and stern were added to the bounty at the bottom of the lock.

Bright and early the next morning Ostinato's crew, along with that of two other boats in the marina, used ropes to pull her across to the docks on the opposite side where she would be hauled up...but despite all efforts she just wouldnt fit, so we pulled her back across. King spent the rest of the morning repairing the damaged gel coat fom the previous day, kicking himself for even trying this and working on schemes ...the alternatives were getting mighty thin. Drying out somewhere seemed to be all that was left. Options were doing it in the mud, an abandoned concrete ferry dock or a fuzzy possibility of a sandy beach 30 miles away. Without Peter and the Orwell Yacht Club close by, I was definetly not up for the mud again and 30 miles without more specifics seemed a bit too iffy so it looked like the concrete across the river was the winner. And the wind continued to blow. Neither of us were thrilled about bouncing the keel up and down on concrete so we waited another day.

June 15

Walking the beach at Dornoch

Our neighbours, Lloyd and his friend Mike on SY Westernman, came to the rescue. These guys not only drove us over to find the sandy beach in Dornoch but also entertained us with stories about Scotand throughout the trip. We found the perfect drying out beach, arrived just in time to hear the bag pipes play for a bride and groom as they left the church, and stopped along side the rode to converse with some long hair cows. We ended the day back on Ostinato with Llyod, Mike and our Dannish neighbors including their 4 cute kids. George and Julia learned a few Dannish words and the little ones jumped on Ostinato's trampolines. It was a lovely day, the beach was perfect and we both slept better that night.

Off to Dornoch by boat bright and early the next day. The blue plastic barrell Mike had dug out of the sand and place on a tree stump for a marker for us was brilliant. As planned, it guided us in to a perfect landing. We settled back a bit as the tide went out. This didnt thrill the kids much and both decided to head for bed early. Low tide wasnt till 11:00, just about sunset. King was over the side as soon as the water retreated. He tried the first prop and climbed back on the boat to inform me it didn't fit! Oh good grief! He then tried the 2nd prop. It didn't fit either. Double damn. Had we ordered the wrong size? We counted splines on the prop and the sail drive. They matched so back over the side to give it another go. This time, Success! We always seem to need a bit of drama. King made quick work of attaching it and at 5 a.m. (sunrise was around 3:30) we backed off the beach, waved goodbye to the seals and headed back for the canal. It was like a homecoming. Even the dolphins seemed glad to see us. The Canal and Marina staff all welcomed us back and because of our problems they added 5 additional days to our canal license. After a last trip to the grocery and quick showers, we were off through the 2nd set of locks that same afternoon. Yea!

George and Julia were naturals tending the lines

George and Julia quickly caught on to how to handle the lines and wmade it through the locks like pros. Off to Loch Ness. George took over helmsman duties to King's delight allowing him to search for a suitable anchorage for the night. It has been a long time since we put a hook down and we were looking forward to it. The following days we would look for Nessie, visit castles, ride the steam engine Jacobite train (aka Harry Potter train), climb Ben Nevis, play multiple rounds of Dominos and UNO and eat. Wow, can teenagers eat! Which brings us back to my birthday. The cake was perfect....we ate the whole thing at one sitting!

Hiking on Ben Nevis was spectacular

June 24

We drove back to Edinburgh today to deliver Julia and George back to the airport today. It was a great visit and we miss them already. The drive through the Highlands was breathtaking....and not just because I was driving.

June 25

It's finally time to leave the canal and begin some exploration of the west coast. We untied the lines at 8:00 a.m. and began our slow transit along with four other boats down Neptune's Staircase, a series of 11 Locks to reach the sea. Where were Julia and George when we needed them? 3 1/2 hours after we began, we were finally cruising down Loch Linnhe toward the Isle of Mull ready to begin our next west coast sailing adventure.