This area, The Trossachs and Loch Lomond National Park was recently designated our first National Park .

We were away for the weekend, my first free weekend this summer as I have been running workshops every  weekend. We spent three days away, beached the boat onto a lovely island where a 50 strong breeding colony of Wallabys stay. Loch Lomond has a number of islands and all have wonderful beaches of soft sand. We set up the barbie, cooked some lamb chops in mint marinade, turkey kebabs in a Mexican spice and consumed reasonable amounts of cold Chardonay and then lay down and watched the stars in the clear sky. A unique experience in normally cloudy Glasgow. I saw my first satellites whizzing across the sky which was wondrous. Svieta had bought some new binocs that stabilise the image so she could remove the shaking effect (of the Chardonay of course) After this we went to bed on 'The Little Lady' only waking up with the bird calls around 7.30 in their case. Very civilised birds around here don't you agree?.

We pushed off and headed up to the 16th century village of Luss for lunch.

After that we cruised the 20 miles to the top of the Loch and moored off at the Ardlui Marina at the tip. Most of the loch is quite shallow at 70 feet maximum around the islands but heading further north we encountered regular depths of over 690 feet. The water dead calm and the running was smooth. We cooked some tender beef fillets marinated in a teriyaki sauce, smothered in a Dolcelatte cremosa sauce on some crusty fresh bread. Followed by some fresh mangos and grapes and all washed down with a few cold beers. We were obviously roughing it on the Loch.

Soon it was getting dark. The rest of the little convoy we had started with arrived (their lunch at Luss took a lot longer than ours, but then we were having solid foods)

The Drovers Inn is a 13th century Inn near Ardlui that was restored in the 1750's. We gave them a call and they sent down their mini bus for us pleasantly driven by the owner. We enjoyed a few more drops of the cold amber nectar, quite necessary on a day where we broke all heat records in the UK with a temperature of 37 degrees recorded. We sat outside under the satellites on a comfortable 18th century swing bench and bantered with our fellow boaters, flotsam and jetsam. We slept really well that night-especially flotsam and jetsam.

The last day I had three disasters. Very early in the morning I asked my neighbours at the moorings in  Ardlui  Marina, to push the prow put while I started the engine. They were waiting on my signal.  I started the engine which was unfortunately in gear. I slammed into the boat in front and cracked his new bathing deck. Neither he or me was happy. I was really upset at doing such a terrible thing, but obviously he was also less than happy. Sorry Sorry Sorry Derick.

Then the fan belt broke on the boat and I did not have the right sized spare and despite completely re setting the alternator  with my neighbouring boaters helping to try and fit the smaller belt, we could not get it to work. Quite a few of us had ripe expletives about all that. None of the other boats had a fan belt to fit as these were all new boats and the Little Lady was a classic. (something like its owner!) I only needed the alternator to charge the batteries and as Little Lady has three batteries in a set on the boat, I decided that it was probably ok to start up and go. We  had to cruise slowly at 3.3 miles an hour back down the 26 mile long Loch.

Finally, mooring at our own marina at the bottom of loch, having taken many hours to get there. I pulled the dinghy in and in the process of fighting with the damned thing, my trousers, which had slid down my  waist and had arrived precariously at my hips.

 I got my leg on the jetty and then disaster. My trousers had got caught on the corner of the boat as I stretched a leg to step on to this  floating jetty. The Little Lady then decided to drift away slightly from the mooring and I lost my balance, my trousers fixed solidly to the boat now caused me me to turn  upside down off the end of the boat in an elegant  belly flap losing my pants in the process as these became a fixture of the Little Lady's butt while I bared mine to the world.

I think I may have waived something to the crowds that regularly line the bridge above to watch the boats below and who seemed to enjoy this bonus spectacle of a large naked man tumbling upside down into the water.

I finished up underneath Loch Lomond. (Which is cool and green coloured incidentally from three feet below the surface)

The echoes of cheers reverberated around the Marina as I sheepishly climbed back on board the Little Lady's bathing deck.

Guess who wasn't wearing his safety belt!!. Anyway I will get a new fan belt, a new trouser belt and a belt round the ear from Svetlana for not wearing a lifebelt and fan mail from my many new admirers on the bridge.

Svetlana thinks I should belt up my mouth now.
 

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