This was a sailing expedition starting on the west coast of Scotland at Ballachulish, traveling 90 miles to Inverness. The expedition was completed in an Admiralty Sailing Cadet boat (ASC) which is a 20 foot gaff rigged open boat. This boat contained a crew of five members of the Sea Cadet Corps. Three of the crew were from Tamworth and Lichfield Sea Cadet Unit and two of the crew members were from Barnstaple Sea Cadet Unit.

There were two purposes to this expedition, the first was to complete the expedition section to our Gold Duke of Edinburgh and the second was to find out information about the lock system and the history of the Caledonian Canal. We did this by collecting information along the way from tourist information centres, as well as this we spoke to a few local people who were all very happy in explaining to us everything that we needed to know about the Caledonian Canal.

This was a challenging and adventurous location to do our expedition as the vast expanses of water and the ever changing weather provided a great contrast to any of our previous boating experiences. The landscape, ranging from mountains and forests to little towns and villages was amazing and each new place had a challenge to be faced on arrival.

Two of the great sights we passed through were Neptune staircase and Loch Ness. Neptune’s Staircase is a series of eight locks, which transports boats up and down the canal at Banavie.

We went through Neptune staircase on the second day; this took us quite a long time as the rise is around 64 feet. We sailed through Loch Ness on the fourth day of our expedition and experienced a great change in wind and swell conditions from start to finish. At the start of the Loch, there were calm waters and gentle breezes, but as we made our way up the great expanse, the winds picked up and the waves changed from white horses to four foot swells lapping the gunnels of the boat.

This is possibly the first expedition where a Sea Cadet ASC has sailed 90 miles from Ballachulish to Inverness and along the length of the Caledonian Canal. This was a great achievement and we feel that we have all developed our leadership skills, self-confidence, self-motivation and sailing skills.