Day 3 - Fort Augustus to Knockie Boat House

So after a very long day with great distances covered yesterday today was the opposite...
We woke to rain and wind which had died down over night but not enough just to leave at 9am as planned - instead we had to pack wet kit and finally left at 11ish...

We paddled to the south side of the Loch crossing the path of the wind and thus had to deal with the swell as well.. Finally we got to the slack water near the southern shore and started paddling up that side.

a parked canoe while we waited

We made about 3k in about 70 mins which was slow and risky going and we decided to head to shore, have an early lunch and wait until it calms slightly. We measured 17mph winds gusting to 22mph - which is too much for an open canoe in our eyes. The challenge is the side of the loch are very steep in most places and it is very hard to land 5 canoes and all our kit on a 45 degree slope...

We finally moved on at about 1730hrs and slowly paddled through the swell which had now dropped to about a foot.

We finally made it to our intended venue for lunch today (Knockie Boat House) at almost 1900hrs and set camp as we weren't going to make our planned camp for the night until gone 2200hrs with good paddling. (Update about 1 to 2km on from Knockie there is what looked like a great place to wild camp if you have a few tents and mainly hammocks)

Knockie Boat House from the side

There was a nice waterfall near the Knockie Boat House however

So in contrast to yesterday's 30k we managed 7k - all in all we are back on track but we have lost our advantage we had built...

We really need to manage 26k tomorrow to get us to Dores for the night.

Fingers crossed for less wind and thus less of a swell.