Tis a bit confusing, we are moored in Loch Aline and when we go ashore the village, is called Lochaline. The population is approximately 200, there’s a grocery shop, post office, petrol station, hotel, restaurant, social club, marina, snack bar. There’s also a sand mine here that was opened in 1940 when Great Britain lost trade routes for the supply of of optical grade silica sand, due to WW2. Now there’s quite a big ferry runs from Lochaline over to the Isle of Mull, and goes to a place called Fishnish, there’s absolutely nothing there but a ferry terminal but its somewhere you want to go, just to say, ” I’ve been to Fishnish”.
Lock Aline is about 2 miles long and wooded on all sides and today we explored the lock on foot. We started at the entrance to the lock and made our way along the northern shore toward the head of the Lock where it is feed by two fast flowing rivers. At the end we found, hidden amongst the trees, Kinlochaline castle, now a private residence.
Kinlochaline Castle is a 15th-century Scottish tower house on the Ardtornish estate in Morvern in the Highland council area. It is also known as Caisteal an Ime because a Lady of Clan MacInnes, Dubh Chal, is said to have paid the builder with butter equal to the volume of the castle. Wikipedia.
Made from pink sandstone, it was refurbished in 1990 after being left abandoned for 300 years.
Lots of birds to see here, I’ve never seen a Siskin before.
Also saw a couple of seals, what may have been a white tailed eagle, and I think nessie might have escaped!
4 Kidneys and a Wonky Leg 
We stayed at the pontoons because we didn’t want to stay aboard at anchor in strong winds for two or three days. I very much enjoyed walking along the old railway line to the east end of the loch (note spelling!) and I did that twice. The winds were high whilst we were there and we saw a yacht beached on the far side; it must have dragged its anchor. The pontoons were OK but quite exposed and VERY expensive. The berthing mistress and her lady assistant are lovely, but it it is all rather amateur. The little café opposite the 1970s-style village store is very good and I had a lovely lunch there. There was free wifi too.
I paid £4 to have a look round the gardens at the big house (not the tower in your photo, the big house a bit further round) and that was a bit of disappointing experience as the gardens are not really maintained properly. It was quiet and peaceful, though, and I enjoyed that.
I envy you still being on your way. I’m at home now – not that I am not pleased to be with my wife – as we completed our circumnavigation yesterday (you saw the post as you ‘liked’ it). All the best for the rest of your trip.
All good wishes,
Best, Jonathan
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Congratulations on completing your trip. 60 days is a good time to do it in. I admire your fortitude to continually do the longer passages. I get really tired after 6 hours or so.
There again, we have a very different itinery and enjoy taking time to explore. We are heading slowly north but the weather is not being kind. If it doesn’t improve in the next week or so ” Round the top” will have to be canned and we will start to head South instead.
Enjoy your time of reflection.
Martin and Louise
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Hello Martin & Louise,
Just read your post from today and each time one comes in I miss being at sea even more. ‘Round the Top’ was easy for us because of the weather; if you get settled conditions then following in our wake will be straightforward. It was so odd to have a full-strength 4G all the way along ‘The Top’.
We had lovely weather over The Top until around Ardnamurchan and from then on it was often grey and windy. It was a shame as we could not enjoy the spectacular west coast as we had hoped.
Actually I don’t think we did many particularly long passages. I will try to include a pdf of our passage log with the final post, if WordPress allows that, and then you’ll see. You’ll also see that, overall, only 34% of our passage hours were sailing. We burnt a hell of a lot of diesel.
All good wishes to you both, anyway. I am struggling to complete a summing-up post. I want to communicate the sense of achievement without it coming over as cloyingly emotional.
Best, Jonathan
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