Cruisin

So I sit down with a big to-do list, laptop at the ready and Aye 1.0 says, “do you want to cruise on Loch Ness later today?” Needless to say I was ferry excited and oh buoy was I ready for some Aye Life normality after months of sitting in the house painting the same walls 19 times like our house was the Forth Rail Bridge. To be fair, parts of our house are pretty rusty, but that’s another story.

Aye-ventures

I immediately did a Starsky and Hutch slide over the bonnet of the car, ready to get going on the drive to the bottom of Loch Ness to catch our boat ride with Cruise Loch Ness.

Cruise Loch Ness sails straight out of Fort Augustus, the biggest tourist stop on the banks of the Ness. It was great to see the tourism starting to kick off with the streets being a socially distanced packed rammy.

Set Sail

The guys running the boat made us all wear masks, sanitise our filthy hands, queue and then sit apart and all of this was completely welcome. To be honest with the exception of standing in the rain queuing to get into ASDA, this was the first time we were in a crowd and it was both unexpectedly weird and normal at the same time.

Captain Aye

Because we are semi-locals, we had our 3rd wheel with us, Callie, the snooper stinker Labrador. We got to go on the boat first with the other dogs and ended up sitting in the best seats in the house on the upper deck.

Decked Out

The boat had an indoor (raining deck) and upper (authentic) deck. The cruise lasts for about 50 minutes and grants you all the epic views of the south side of the biggest inland body of water you’re probably ever going to see in these parts.

Our guide Shaun kept all the tourists up to date with the latest Nessie developments and was clearly absolutely buzzing to tell their stories and facts after being locked away for so long. The staff were genuinely excited to be back on the water and in amongst the cruisers.

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