Day 16 – Loose Ends

• Rest day at Nairn
• 0 kms

This was the second of two planned rest days. The sun was out and the winds were light for most of the day. I felt a little guilty not being out on the water, but still managed to have a lovely day.

I’m just going to do a short post to tie up a few loose ends from the first two weeks of paddling

Clyde Puffer

On Day 5, I passed this boat coming down Loch Fyne:

Graeme, a friend and fellow paddler, was on Arran that week and spotted the same boat – VIC 32. He referred to it as a Clyde Puffer. This prompted me to do a little more research. The boat is indeed a Puffer and is now a tourist boat available for hire – Puffer Steamboat Holidays

Scottish Islands Peak Race

On day 9 when I arrived in Oban, I spoke with the skipper of the yacht Tahira. He had sailed up from Southampton over 10 days to take part in the race. The race actually started later than I expected, on May 16th. The first boat completed the course in just under 2 days. Unfortunately, Tahira retired with the comment – “Retired but will continue around to do the runs”. There’s a great little app – YB Races – that you can use on your phone to see the tracks and positions of all the competitors. You can even rewind to see how the race developed over time.

The Nessie Story

As I approached Loch Ness, I knew I wanted to do something about Nessie for my nieces who had been excited to hear that I would be seeing her. I knew AI generated images were possible, but I didn’t have the resources while out paddling to investigate how to actually do it. I decided to get in touch with the girls’ father, Will, to see if he knew any more. As luck would have it, he had just started playing with the tools a short while ago. I told him what I was planning, and within minutes he came back with a quick test image using one of my earlier blog post photos. Although, we finally went with a more ferocious Nessie, I do quite like this first slightly mischievous looking one: