Do-it -yourself Canal

At 10am we're locking up. Good-by salt water and tidal flows. "Sedna" and "Babette" step up, lock by lock, into the do-it-yourself Crinan Canal. We get expert assistance from "British Waterways" lock-keepers to get us started. Then we're on our own. Huffing and puffing, pushing and pulling. The heavy gates creak open and we crank the watergates up and down. As in Watergate. Of the more famous C&O canal.
The landscape looks oddly familiar. After cactii and aloe in volcanic slopes, Tobago's rain forests, blue hydragias of the Azores, we're back. Back to birch. And pine, and oak. And cool, wet days. And low-flying swallows to feast on the mosquitoes.

At lock number 8, Caialbaan, we're at the top. Blue mountain ranges in the distance, cows munching cud canal-side. Very pastoral this inland sailing.
So, downhill. From lock 9 to 13 we crank and push, opening and closing water chambers til we're down at a Marina just short of the sea-lock.
It's here we take farwell with our sometimes sailing companion, "Sedna". We've sailed tandem since the Azores. And up along Ireland. Now, between canals, our ways diverge. Over a piece of "Sedna"-concocted chocolate cake we recap and wish each other fair winds and hope to meet again.

Tomorrow we sail to the next Scottish canal: Telford's great Caledonian.