I am much too early awake for the Capitainerie to be open yet… So I grab another bike and ride around the area a bit. I come across typical Breton churches, stony-grey, built in the late Middle Ages, with their ossuaries standing next to them and the impressive stone crosses also […]
The day starts grey. Newlyn is covered in clouds – ideal to get through my fitness programme before I set off. But I don’t really have a programme any more; I always see what I can do situationally… Today I jog along the coast to see what it might look like […]
In Milford Haven, too, I am invited for tea (and a chat) early in the morning by sailors who, like me, are moored on the floating quays. I gladly pass by and hardly recognise myself, how relaxed and communicative I have become in socialising and showing my interest, even if I […]
This morning I have to refuel again… So I walk through the town with a trolley and six canisters for a total of 120 litres of petrol (always on slightly different routes) to have enough fuel for at least two next landing destinations (reserves are ballast, but increase my range in […]
How can I put it? It’s not really bustling in the harbour of Kilkeel, but it’s still a constant coming and going; boats arrive, unload their cargo, others fill their bunkers with ‘bait fish’ for the crab catch, prepare to set sail… There’s always something going on, but it seems anything […]
Belfast is quickly experienced. Makes me sad. So on to the next petrol station; I also urgently need an oil change – I’ve been on the water for just over 100 hours. My first oil change since I started in Tallinn, by the way… This shows impressively that although I cover […]
After breakfast I go to the harbour master, pay, and am again very kindly served. Showers, toilet facilities etc., everything tiptop. The lady in the tourist office, who receives guests in the same building, also gives me valuable knowledge about the region without being asked. In the harbour, I get ready […]
Ten more lock stages to the Atlantic, eight of them in one piece at Banavie. From one lock chamber I go straight into the next; after an hour and a half I come to the short stretch of canal that leads me to the last two lock chambers. The whole procedure […]
I set off in the early morning haze and make my way up to Loch Oich, the apex of the Caledonian Canal, about 40 m above sea level. The season seems to be over; the few boats that are still out and about (no one is out this early anyway) are […]
From the marina of the canal at Inverness, it’s straight to the five-stage lock; each chamber brings the ArgoFram about three to four metres higher. Then follows one or two swing bridges and another lock until I finally enter Loch Ness – a long, narrow moat about 35 km long and […]