Debi and Jack sailing on SV Iroquois

This was posted a day after it was written.
We're just beginning the third stage of our summer's journey--transiting the Caledonian Canal. We spent the last week ashore, visiting with Patty and Mike and touring Edinburgh, Glasgow and Loch Lomond. Jack and I took the train to Edinburgh Thursday the 23rd and met them Friday morning. We went to the castle, which was very impressive and spent some time walking around. We ate at a place called The Dogs, which was decorated with dog statues and art and had good local food and drink. The next day we went to a cathedral then took a train to Glasgow, where we stayed in a clock tower converted to apartments rented on airb&b. We went to the cathedral there and walked around the necropolis then met up with Mike's nephew, Daniel. Daniel took us to a microbrewery which had great food called Drygate, then on a walking tour of central Glasgow, with plenty of stops for pints and whiskey.It turns out that none of us except Daniel likes whiskey. The next day we continued the tour and visited the botanical gardens and ate at Mother India, a 'curry shop', with two of his friends. I wouldn't be a vacation with Jack if it didn't include an art museum. On Monday we spent the morning at the Kelvingrove Museum, which has the Salvador Dali portrait of christ from above.It's a good museum half art, half natural history, with a sense of humor and an educational bent, enjoyed by all. Then we took a train to Balloch at the foot of Loch Lomond and were waiting for the bus to Balmaha, where we had booked a B&B, when a woman drove up in a car and asked if we were the two couples staying at her B&B. We all squeezed into her car with our packs and her groceries. I held the teacakes on my lap that had been made by her 90 year old mother. On the way up she explained to Jack that all the farmland is still owned by the duke and families have like 180 year leases to farm on it. Although she thought he was a very nice man, he doesn't maintain his properties and that's a problem. The B&B,Bay Cottage, was great with a hottub and excellent food for 80 pounds/night for two of us. Tea was served shortly after we arrived. She doesn't do evening meals anymore so we went across the street to the pub for dinner. Next day we took a water taxi over to Inchcailloch, which is a nearby island, where we hiked through a temperate rainforest to a ranger station on the other side. There were beautiful expansive views from the top of the island. We met the ranger, Tommy, who couldn't stop once we got him talking. He gave us all the same information we later heard on the ferry about Loch Lomond's geography and history. But when I told him I was related to the Colquhuons he took us out the the end of the pier with binoculars to show us the Colquhoun manor on the other side of Loch Lomond, an impressive mansion next to the golf course, Loch Lomond Golf Club, which he says once was where they played the Scottish Open. It's apparently a very exclusive and expensive club. We were late for our ride back to the mainland but luckily the boatman circled back around and picked us up. Then Jack and I took another water taxi to the town of Luss to see the Colquhoun clan museum. We took lots of pictures of gravestones in the church cemetary and visited with the clan historian. It seems that the Colquhouns were in lots of battles and always got their asses kicked. They were better at making money than fighting. Thursday morning after our complete Scottish breakfast we took the train to Oban. I called the marina to say we were coming back and was told that they had had some trouble with the passport agents. Apparently we were not properly cleared into the country and the marina has been battling with passport control over it. The people at the marina say we should just go about our business and let them deal with it, but we are technically still illegal aliens I guess. Maybe they can straighten it out today, but we're planning to leave Sunday. Yesterday we went on a little sail with Patty and Mike to Dunstaffnage, where we filled up on diesel and water but had to raft up in order to do it and didn't stay to visit the castle or eat lunch as we had planned. Instead we went back to Oban and ate at the seafood shack again, then we walked around and found the Chocolate Shop, where we surprisingly ran into some people from Auburn University fisheries program, who knew lots of people we knew back then, including a housemate of ours. We lost touch with Karen when she was in Rwanda and we moved to Wisconsin so we're really happy that we may be able to get back in touch with her. Last night we ate at the restaurant here at Oban Marina, which was excellent--venison in juniper sauce, sole stuffed with wild onions and mushrooms, and scottish salmon. This morning Patty and Mike caught the ferry for Oban, where they planned to get a train and continue on. The weather today is awful, cold, rainy and windy. I'm hoping it improves but I'm not super optimistic. We've had very few nice days. The good news is that when we got back to the marina they had a package for us from the heater vendor. It held a new pump for the fuel tank, a bicycle pump with a cap they had made to fit the bike pump. Today we tested it and it works. Our boat is nice and warm. We plan to leave the boat in Inverness over the winter. So will start finding our way home soon, but it will take a while. We have lots of work to do on the boat before we can leave. I tried to post pictures but it takes FOREVER. Will do more later.