Beautiful

The weather was MUCH improved today.  We had a couple of heavy little showers, but other than that it was dry and mostly sunny.  We saw this rather lovely rainbow looking back over Aberchalder Swing Bridge just after passing through.

We were delayed getting into the locks at Fort Augustus this morning by a large survey vessel, the Ondine Jule, which was due to lock just ahead of us.  She has a fancy computer controlled directional positioning system which went wrong as she went through the swing bridge causing her to hit the bank.  She sustained some damage and sat blocking the canal for about an hour while they figured out what to do.  Eventually she set off, and we were able to lock up after her.

We pressed straight on to Kytra lock, and the Ondine Jule was just entering the lock when we got there.  There were plumes of water up the side of the chamber from her thrusters as she crept in.  Once in the chamber she started drifting back and nearly hit the gates.  As she eventually left the lock, her thrusters were jetting water in odd directions and up the walls again - enough to trigger alarms in the lock equipment and disable the lock.  The Lock Keeper showed CyclopsJnr and I the new computer control system on this lock, and even let CyclopsJnr push the button to move the gate that did still work.  

An engineer had to be called to fix the lock.  We had lunch while we waited for them to arrive, and in the end (when they still hadn't appeared) biked up to the next lock in the sunshine to pass some time.  It was a lovely wee ride.  We especially enjoyed crossing a very shallow weir with a nice splash!

When we got got back to Kytra the lock was working again so we set off.  Fortunately Ondine Jules managed not to break the next lock at Cullochy, and we got straight through there and Aberchalder Swing Bridge (pictured).  We had hoped to get to Laggan Locks tonight, but the Laggan Bridge was closed by the time we got there.  We were 15 minutes before closing time, and the Lock Keeper from Kytra had called ahead to let them know we were coming so not sure why the bridge was unattended. 

Rather than stay on the pontoon at the bridge next to a noisy main road, we headed back up Lock Oich a little bit an moored for the night at Invergarry.  A lovely quiet spot.