It rained heavily during the evening and night but by morning only an odd shower remained, together with a complete change in the wind direction. Instead of the expected fight upwind to the head of Loch Eil we were treated to a leisurely drift on the following Force 1, which died to nothing as we neared the end of the loch.
A light rain had started as we landed and converted our canoes to land vehicles for the several miles of the portage, but it certainly did nothing to deter the clouds of midges from trying to bite lumps out of us.
Anyone who says they enjoy the process of portaging must be a bit weird to my mind. But as a part of our journey it was integral and allowed us to avoid the serious challenge of Ardnamurchan Point, as well as providing a delightful two-day experience of the extensive Loch Shiel. But it has to be said that portaging one’s canoe and kit is hard work, even with the aid of a set of wheels and a good road surface. After the necessary several miles of trundling we were ready for some lunch, but the midges were also ready for us. You become used to them after a while, some people say. I haven’t managed to do so yet, but you have to eat, which we did in spite of them, before heading on.
I made for the small river, which flows down into the loch as soon as I could, but this turned out to be an adventure in itself: in jungle canoeing and wading for a mile until the river became easier and the others joined me. They had wisely decided to continue further along the road before relaunching. The mirror-flat conditions paddling down the rest of the river into Loch Shiel was a pointed contrast to the sea conditions experienced earlier in the trip.
In spite of having travelled only a few miles we felt we had earned a celebratory and therapeutic drink so we sought out the bar of the hotel at Glen Finnan and relaxed for a while with beer and peanuts. On returning to the boats there was good news and bad: it was good that there was some wind and that it was not too strong to prevent progress, but it was bad in that it was from the most unhelpful direction and so light as to be hardly worth sailing at all. But you must take the smooth with the rough, so we rigged our largest sail area available and set off down the loch amongst the finest mountain scenery one could wish for, beating south-west into the lightest of breezes.
After an hour or two of this gentle ghosting, the wind actually did give up entirely, leaving the loch as smooth as the proverbial mirror. With lowered sails and following a quick brew-up ashore we paddled on, cleaving three faint V-shaped and short-lived wakes across the otherwise perfectly mirrored mountain scenery. The light breeze returned twenty minutes later and another couple of hours gentle beating saw us to our campsite for the night at Glenaladale, a little chilled but happy with our progress of 12 miles.
