Girl Power!

We waited a day for the rainy weather to end, moored alongside our cosy pontoon at the Cairnbaan Hotel. 
To while away the time, we followed a walking trail that took us quite a bit further than we had expected through a bog-land forest.  There were boardwalks and wooden planks to help us cross the wettest parts but somehow we still managed to end up with soaked walking boots.  After that we felt that we deserved yet another fine supper at the Hotel!

Next day the weather was dry and we set off to tackle the remaining locks with our fellow canal-boaters, Roger and Bob on their yacht, "Bonnie".  We paired up with Bonnie because getting through the locks is much easier if you can share the jobs with two more people.

A typical Crinan Canal lock

Today we had 4 uphill locks and 5 downhill locks to pass through before the exit at Crinan Basin.

The Lock Keeper and Bob with Rosie winding the sluice valve

Rosie and Bob worked the locks while Doug and Roger drove the boats and threw us their lines to tie up in the lock.
To get through a lock Bob and I had to:
1. Open the 2 lower sluice valves to let the water out of the lock to match the lower canal water level.
2. Push open 2 mighty lock gates by leaning back on the lock gate levers and walking them slowly open.
3. Wait while the boats were driven into the lock and secure the mooring lines.
4.  Close those heavy gates again.
5.  Close the sluice valves we opened before.
6.  Open one of the upper sluice valves but not too fast or else Bonnie would surge all over the place as Roger liked to keep her lines rather loose :)
7. Open the upper lock gates - very heavy as well.
8. Untie the boats so they could drive out.
9.  Close the lock gates and all sluice valves.
10.  Sprint to the next lock to get the gates open before the boats arrived!

This was what is called "very good exercise".  In fact there was a sign on the lock gate saying "only to be operated by 2 persons".  Hmm, we only had 1 person to open each lock gate so we had a lot of heaving to do.  💪

While all this was happening, the general public watched on and made helpful comments such as "that looks like hard work".

I swapped with Doug for the final 5 downhill locks to spare my muscles and to get some boat driving practice.

We were very glad to finally arrive at Crinan Basin ready to go through the final sea lock tomorrow.

Evening View from Crinan to the Western Isles that await us