Friday 11 May 2012

Day 2: Ratho to Linlithgow

































What a punishing run is the Union; we bucked and yawed our way to Linlithgow and my engine is seriously unhappy. The bigger the water, the happier she is but he Union is only 3 feet deep (and we draw 2)… let’s away to the Atlantic! Oh but the scenery… the view up here (it’s a summit run) feels like a Constable come alive and the yellow rape horizons are difficult to capture on the humble camera. But we tried.

My heart is heavy moving west away from this thriving canal community… a hint of how things could be in Glasgow… boats boats boats… at Ratho, in Edinburgh.

In Glasgow? Nothing. Just li’l ole Peccadillo.

















Reason 2 (for doing the journey)
I love this engine, this old BMC 2.5. I love it and know it so well (thanks to the coaching of the Dutch Navy… Joe, Jimmy and Davie), and one of the greatest gifts of my time on the canal has been the growing relationship with the mechanics and vagaries of the vessel and its works. And now I take the old BMC 300 miles to Inverness. “I know what you want to do” said Joe after our last great scare when the fuel pump went… “you want to take that old BMC out to sea and say look what I did, I took that bloody old BMC out to sea, don’t you!?!” And that’s exactly right. I can’t afford a shiny new boat or a zooty new engine… I don’t want one. There’s nothing to beat the beat of the engine you know beneath your feet… knowing there’s a problem just by the sound or the smell of her… and there’s no lottery worth winning than just dropping below, fixing it and then setting off again.

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