Loch Ness monster sail sighted / Nautical knight of Nairn

 As it turned out we had a decent wind behind us and cruised down a good deal of Loch Ness with our very large, monstrous, Spinnaker sail flying. It is a long loch but despite keeping a sharp lookout we did not see Nessie. It is 28th June 2021.

We were managed smoothly through various locks and swing bridges as the channel narrowed and we entered Inverness. We had planned to get through the canal and into the sea marina of Inverness, but the power on the final sea lock failed and we stayed the night at the salt free marina at the end of the canal.

The final sea lock of the Caledonian Canal at Inverness

We visited the infamous Gael Force Marine chandlers in Inverness in the morning while we waited for the engineer to fix the sea lock gates and for the tide to come in. At 3pm we went through the sea lock and into the Firth of Inverness. We motor sailed to push against the end of the flood tide then turned the corner into the Moray Firth and sailed at 5 knots on a reach towards Nairn. Now Nairn is a tricky harbour to enter because it has a sand bar that dries out at low tide. However, we are a bilge keel boat and with only a draft of 1.2 metres figured if we were quick we could get in safely even two hours after high tide. The recommended entry is high tide plus or minus one and half hours, so we were pushing our luck. An email from an experienced sailing friend, who we might be able to meet in Peterhead on his way back from the Orkneys, mentioned this aspect of getting in and out of Nairn and suggested that we ‘take care’.

The three-hour sail to Nairn started to take longer than hoped and so we nervously called the Nairn Harbour Master as we approached. He was a little bit sceptical: ‘you need to get on with it as you will not have much water’. He kindly said that he would come back down to the harbour to see us in. We did ask for any local advice and were told to get on with it, so we did. We dropped the sails just off the sand bar and went over with a keen eye on the depth gauge. It showed that we were only just in time as it fell gradually to 0.0 metres, so we literally had no clearance below the keels. We then saw the depth creep back up and felt some relief as we had cleared the sand bar and entered the channel between two sea walls. We followed the guidance from the pilot, which said clearly to keep to the east side of the channel, that is the left-hand side (port side to nautical types). We were approaching the right turn into the little harbour when we came to a sudden and complete halt, we had grounded the boat. We did the usual tricks: put it into reverse; rock the boat; throw an anchor off to one side and try to drag the boat into deeper water. None of this was much use, we seemed to be stuck firmly. Two locals appeared on the sea wall and told us by gesticulating that the deeper water was on the west side of the channel. Useful advice but perhaps just a little late in arriving. We were resigned to a night stuck in the channel waiting for the tide to lift us, which was a rather undignified position but more about dented sailors’ pride and lack of sleep than dangerous. Just at that moment the little harbour master’s boat chugged round the corner, a knight in oily orange boilersuit! A rope was thrown and sure enough we were pulled off the sand bank and back into deeper water, on the west side of the channel. We pottered tentatively into the harbour, keeping to the west side of the channel, and pulled up on a pontoon. Of course, we thanked the harbour master and his assistant profusely. This provoked just seven words from the harbour master: ‘I will see you in the morning’ before he went home to get his now presumably overcooked or slightly chilly dinner. I realised afterwards that I had failed to capture a single shot of the ‘rescue’ and it seems rather pleasing that despite my recently increased engagement with social media, when push comes to shove, I seem to be more concerned with survival than posting on Instagram. I can assure you that our minor epic was not preserved for eternity on a Go Pro camera, it did actually happen.

The 'fishwife' of Nairn

The channel at low tide: keep left THEN keep right

The way out in the morning, but with more water!

After visiting an ale house in Nairn we wandered over to see the channel of doom at low tide and to inspect the way back out to sea. Actually, the pilot was correct, stay on the east side, but only until half-way in, specifically to where the new steel shoring becomes the old stone harbour wall, then cross diagonally and continue on the west side of the channel. Looking out to sea was rather sobering and we charted our best course for the morning to avoid the worst of the drying sand bars. Ironically to both sides of the harbour are beautiful sandy beaches which given the light winds and lack of swell we could easily have just sailed up to with the intention of drying out for the night.

The pleasant harbour of Nairn, with plenty of water once you reach it

As it happens our sail plan is to leave the harbour on high tide at 4am and sail on eastwards, so we have left an envelope on the harbour master’s boat with the harbour fee plus sufficient for a few beers as reward for our rescue.