On Thursday morning we left Dun Laogharie and headed North for Scotland. The wind was light so we were motoring and motorsailing to start with.
There were lots of fishing boats and some of them were rather unpredictable! We sailed through the night and in the early morming we sailed passed Ailsa Craig. We know about Aisla Craig because our grandfather, Papadon, wrote a book for us about us and our cousins having adventures on the way to Ailsa Craig on a big landing craft. Papadon spent a few months collecting granite from Ailsa Craig to get turned into curning stones.
When we got into the Clyde on Friday morning we managed to have a bit of a sail because the winds were stronger. We stopped at Portavadie Marina. We went to an amazing swimming pool which had a heated outdoor pool, a hot tub, a sauna and an inside pool. Mummy liked the washing machines and showers!
On Saturday morning we motored up to Ardrishaig and met up with one of Daddy's school friends David, his partner Synnove and his kids John and Annie. We had to wait for a while outside the Crinan Canal while some other boats came out, there was almost a crash between them.
We went through the first four locks and then moored on a pontoon and went into Ardrishaig to get some lunch. I (Fergus) managed to get meatball sauce behind my ears! Then we motored along the canal, past David's old house, and we moored up for the evening at Cairnbaan. We went to David's Mum's house in Lochgilphead in David's cool electric car. We played football with John and then we had a takeaway curry for dinner.
On Sunday, we carried on going through the locks in the Crinan Canal. We helped with opening and closing the lock gates.
We got to Crinan at lunchtime. After lunch David, Synnove and John left and we helped to clean the boat.
We watched a David Attenborough TV programme about finding a whole Pliosaur skull. We went for a walk by the canal and saw the VIC 32 which is a steam powered cargo boat that use to take cargo around Scotland, but now takes people on holiday.
Out in the bay, we saw a big sailing schooner called Adix which was really beautiful.
On Monday, after home school, we watched VIC 32 leave the canal under steam power. The steam whistle was VERY loud!
Then we left Crinan and had a nice sail to Ardfern, which is where Daddy grew up. We saw Daddy's old house which Mimi and Papadon had built, then we visited Daddy's friends Cameron and Abi the house that they built. They had a zip wire in the garden and Fergus did some tree rubbings.
For dinner, we visited Dad's friends Jacqui and Bruce, and we found out that their son Ruaridh had helped us on some of the locks in the Crinan Canal, which he is doing as a summer job. We made some legomodels while Mummy and Daddy were chatting.
This morning, Jacqui told us all about the stone age history near here and we saw some flint axes, bone tools and a replica skull.
