You know when it is getting late in the season when you are warned that the canal is to be closed for winter maintenance. I had known this for sometime but the date was getting close. It was time to make a move or be stuck in the canal for the next six months.

The plan was to exit the last two locks of the canal and move around the corner to Inverness Harbour half a mile away for an overnight stop. Even if we had not been forced to leave it would have been a good move. It can take a long time to exit the locks which makes planning difficult.

Having said that when you get to the Inverness Yacht Haven you realise it is not your average marina. On reporting to the harbour they first stated the facilities they did NOT have! No Shower, no electric, no water, no washing facilities, and no toilet…it was going to be an interesting stay. It would not be so bad if the charge was not £12 a night!

The original plan of staying overnight was soon shelved with the weather forecast changing for the worse.

On Saturday morning I woke up early to go shopping only to find I had been locked onto the pontoons. Apparently the port of Inverness was having a security inspection which involved padlocking the pontoon gate. Three phone calls and three quarters of an hour later a security guard came and let me out. They escorted me off the property not before I pointed out that their lockdown procedure was probably in conflict to the need for the pontoon to have a fire exit!

By the evening the security was back to normal and I walked straight past the empty security gatehouse. The rest of the population of the canal had by now been “evicted” and had filled the pontoons in the harbour through the afternoon. The yacht in front of Silverwind was a steel boat from the Netherlands and after dinner they invited me for a drink. Terry & Martine are at the end of their summer cruise in the Western Isles on their yacht Brandaan. They were also looking for a spell of good weather to make it down the east coast. On Tuesday night they were kind enough to invite me to dinner for what we planned to be our last night in Inverness.

That was until the forecast came through over dinner – a force 7 from the northeast! At 9am the next morning Brandaan left Inverness on route to Peterhead but I know we would be staying at least another day. My last day in Inverness was spent on the tourist trail exploring Fort George ten miles down the coast. The hourly bus took me to the door of the impressive fortress that was once built to defend against the Jacobite uprisings. An enjoyable afternoon was spent wondering around the fort and inspecting the passage of water we would need to pass through before exiting into the North Sea.