The images presented were taken in the 1990's. Taken as prints, there is degradation when going from print to digital images. Also, where we were traveling sometimes delayed processing for weeks or months and humidity played havoc with the undeveloped film. Still, I wanted to share our experiences through the pictures we took.
July 1997. High on our "to do" list was to transit the Caledonian Canal in Scotland. One interesting feature of the Canal was Loch Ness. Lori was probably more excited about that than Carl, but, hey, if we happen to see "something" on the way through--how cool! The main difference would be--Lori would have the camera ready just in case. We hung out in Oban until we were ready to start our transit. We spent 7 days making our way through the locks, stopping at Fort Augustus, anchoring in Lock Ness and near Uhrquardt castle, and others. We debated if we should spend the winter here or carry on to Norway. In the end, we kept going. Norway was calling us. We found the Canal had great amenities and was secure. The Canal had 29 locks, (8 in one place called Neptune's Staircase), 8 aquaducts, and 10 bridges. We shared some locks with other boats and some we went alone. We could easily have spent more than the seven days we took to make the transit. July 1997. We left the Emerald Isle behind and headed for Scotland. Lochs and islands everywhere, along with beautiful scenery and interesting water. We spent some time on the West Isles of Scotland. Our American flag was noticed in many places and that sometimes brought people out from their lives ashore. That happened in Loch Sween. A fisherman brought us a bag of prawns-yummy. And a young lady sailed by and invited us up to her mom's house. Her mom used to sail quite a bit and she offered a shower and a place to do laundry. Oh my!! We took her up on it and as we sat around chatting, sipping beer and marveling at the view down the length of the loch, we found out "mom" was Briget Hasler, wife to Blondie Hasler of single handler fame. Carl was very familiar with his sailing adventures and he was stoked that we were there! So not only were we mesmerized by her presence (Blondie had died some time ago), but we got a shower and we were able to do two loads of laundry! We scooted into Loch Sween to get out of the bad weather and we had an experience that we never could have planned.
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