Another day on the water

Today dawned sunny and bright, and my friend and I set off at 8.15am for the drive to Dalavich, again, for the actual race after the practicing yesterday. After parking I met Blipper Livresse, who was rowing in the race.

After a briefing the skiffs set off, several of them getting ahead immediately and others lagging far behind. The referee's boat, which I was in, had to make a few return trips to make sure that the lagging crews were OK, which they were. It was quite choppy out on the water and not easy to take good pictures, but I ended up with around 350 images of which I shall ditch more than half. My Blip today is of one of the skiffs with Ben Cruachan in the background.

After a long, slow chug - I'm not sure how far, but about 7.5 miles - we arrived at the Taychreggan Hotel where the crews changed over and set off for the return journey. The skipper tried to get among the skiffs to allow me to take pictures, but he was wary of upsetting the boats with his wake, so many of my pictures were of distant boats. My extra today if of the activity on Taychreggan beach with many of the arriving skiffs pulled up on the beach.

My friend took the boat on the return journey while I got a lift back by road, where we waited for a long time until the first skiff arrived as a speck on the far shore. Eventually they all arrived safely and we all trooped up the track to the campsite where the prizegiving took place. Several skiffs did both legs of the regatta without a crew change - it was a long haul.

A great day out - I'm just glad that I wasn't rowing!