This is the story of my holiday with five children camping on Loch Lomond this summer. It involves a cowboy, wild winds, calms, canoes, shipwreck and plague.

Loch Lomond is 20 miles long but most of the islands are concentrated in the shallow and wide bulb at the south end. This bulb is approximately five miles in diameter and has eight major islands, about a mile or more long, eight smaller islands, the smallest of which has the ruins of a castle, and numerous rocks and reefs. Four of the islands are inhabited. Three have one house each and Inchmurrin, the largest and most southerly has a hotel and a number of other houses. The main group consists of four, of which three are grouped around ‘the triangle’. These are Inchtavannach, inhabited and the most westerly island and the one we had selected, Inchconnachan, another inhabited island, and Inchmoan which is low and flat. The first two are separated by ‘the narrows’ which is about forty yards wide and with two reefs in the narrowest part. The fourth island in the group, Inchcruin is separated from Inchmoan by a narrow and very shallow channel. The other inhabited island is Inchlonaig which dominated our route from the campsite at Cashell. My two younger children Ewan (14) and Isla (12) had persuaded me to take them for a day on the loch the previous year. Another day became possible so we went again. This year they wanted to spend a week camping on the islands. Both are members of orchestras and unfortunately Isla lost out because of the dates of her summer camp.

The party consisted of myself, Ewan, three of his school friends Tim, Paddy and Olly, Colin, the son of an old family friend and later Isla. I was responsible for five fourteen year olds which was rather more than I had intended if I were alone, but they behaved reasonably well. I have three sailing dinghies, a Mirror Sixteen, a Miracle and a Ten, the common Mirror. I also have three canoes, two are eleven foot ply kayaks, the newest is an eighteen foot ply Rob-Roy.

My sister and I formed an advance party. With my car loaded up with the three dinghies and three canoes we arrived at Cashell campsite, which is run by the forestry, on the 9th August. We sailed 3 miles across the loch to Inchtavannach where I had arranged to camp and landed at the south end near the house so as to call on the tenant Roy Rogers. The loch was far busier than I remembered with rafts of motor boats, camping parties all over and jetskis and high speed launches and cabin craft. Roy is not American, nor is his horse called Trigger, but he trades on his name to the extent that he rides at shows on ponies with Indian names using a western saddle. It puzzles me how he manages to land his horses from the island in his steel outboard-powered dinghy.

On Sunday Kirsty returned to Edinburgh and I collected Ewan and his school friends from Glasgow Central. I had decided that we would be in the campsite the first night and it was as well as the wind was wild. The boys took out the three canoes and I hurtled around in the Sixteen trying to shepherd them and getting very wet.

It was still as windy on Monday morning. Both kayaks capsized and the larger canoe had carried on round the corner so I was trying to shepherd them together. Later the wind lightened and we sailed across to Inchtavannach in the dinghies only for the wind to go altogether leaving us to paddle home.

The wind was light on Tuesday morning and, once Colin had arrived, we set off to the island. The boys had brought far too much kit, by a factor of three, the 18’ canoe was stuffed around Olly who sat paddle-less and was towed. The Sixteen was also stuffed but there is plenty of space below the foredeck and it was less obvious. The Miracle carried a couple of bags and the Mirror was rowed with more. We stopped halfway along Inchlonaig for lunch, because the wind had died away completely and we needed the rest. In the afternoon we ended up rowing, towing and paddling. The Mirror, with Tim at the oars, was the tug towing the Miracle, and the canoes. I paddled the Sixteen. When we reached the narrows we found that all the spots nearest the narrows were already occupied and we had to go a little further. We pitched camp, four tents and a tarpaulin rigged as a cooking shelter and made ourselves at home. Olly couldn’t find his camp bed and found that he had to sleep on the ground like the rest of us. The tarpaulin was tied to trees at the corners and pushed up with sticks through other eyelets along the edge. This was very successful and some nights the lads moved out of the tent and slept beneath it or under the stars.

We explored the island. The north end rises to a peak with a steep fall to the side facing the mainland. The hinterland is mostly covered with the primeval open deciduous forest and there is no lack of dead wood for camp fires. Directly behind us there was a path which led across to a field to the south of the main peak. To the south a path led round a lower peak to Roy’s farm at the south end of the island. To the north another path led along the shore to the narrows.

With no fridge we were dependent on shopping each day and without wind we used the Ten and the canoes, rowing and paddling. We landed to the south of Luss pier. Luss is dominated by the tourist industry. There are three tourist shops, which all stock the same things at the same prices, an information centre, a campsite, two hotels and a general store which suffers from being too close to Balloch. Next time I will bring more tinned and dried food, the choice was restricted. The best place was the Colquhoun Arms which provides an excellent and cheap bar menu.

On Wednesday the winds started slightly better and we sailed the Sixteen and the Ten with the two kayaks. Basically we went to Luss, of course, but the long way round via the castle to the south of Inchtavannach. However the wind had dropped by the time we were half way and we were down to oars again.

We had a fantastic lunch at the pub and the wind had, well… freshened isn’t the right word, but at least there was some to come back with. Later it came on more but clouds were gathering and soon the rain was falling as thunder crashed, but by then we were snug in our tents.

Thursday brought better winds so we took a longer route round Inchmoan. There was only about a foot depth on the inside of Inchcruin and we waded through and battled the dinghies off the shallows. We should have gone the other way about so as to negotiate the shallows down wind. Later we headed south to Inchmurrin. I reached the pier and if I had had a map with me I would have realised that continuing round would have been only slightly further than going back.

Friday we decided to climb the hills and set off with rucksack etc. to Luss. There was low cloud but we hoped it would lift. The route was a horseshoe taking in half a dozen low peaks of 1150-2150ft. We reached the first top of 1400ft and realised that we could go no further because the cloud was only about 100ft above us and we had to turn back.

On Saturday disaster struck. The Sixteen had developed a leak and increasingly had had to be drawn up to drain the underfloor tanks. She felt very sluggish as we sailed to Luss and it was obvious that it would need to be drawn up again. We inserted the fender that we use for a roller and started to heave her up when there was a loud cracking sound. The roller had gone through the bottom. We had already voted for another meal at the pub and I needed to recharge the battery on my mobile so there we foregathered to lick our wounds and to decide our moves.

On our way over I had noticed a large number of small sails drawn up on the shore to the north of the pier. As we got closer I realised that the largest was that of a Ten, the others were on canoes! I had built a canoe when I was fourteen, a canoe with sails, and in the succeeding, ouch, forty years had seen only one other sailable canoe, as opposed to the International Canoe which is no more paddleable than a dinghy. The Open Canoe Sailing Association had twenty eight on the loch that week! Perhaps this is to be expected as the sailing club on the loch is the Clyde Canoe Club which is neither on the Clyde nor does it sail canoes any more!

After lunch I returned to the problem of the very large hole in the bottom of my largest boat. I could leave it on the shore until the end of the week but it would be liable to vandalism and theft. I could take up the offer of materials from a passer-by who was a boat builder in Balloch but I could not afford the time with five charges to look after. Colin and I sailed back to Cashell to collect the car and trailer, drove the eighteen miles round and we then faced the problem of getting the boat, now on a trolley, to the trailer. The gate was locked! We tried the locals. We tried the police. We tried the loch patrol. None could produce a key.

Eventually we resolved that we would have to lift the boat over the gate! Locals rallied round and we planned it out. The gate would probably break. Suddenly someone shook a post beside the gate, it came out of the ground half rotted away! We rushed the boat through the gap onto the trailer and drove it back to Cashell. It was dark by the time Colin and I were approaching the camp. Dark but not peaceful. A party of American sailors with an enormous cruiser had moored about two hundred yards away and were dancing on the shore to music which was being blasted out from some gigawatt amplifier. Over supper we plotted revenge. We would sneak out in the dark and serenade them with rugby songs.

After supper we took to the water, I in the big canoe and the others in the Ten. It was exhilarating to slip quietly into the rafts of boats but the lads were starting up with their choruses of “Oh Sir Jasper” when I realised that the original culprits, the sailors, were no longer there! Eventually I managed to persuade them to quietly return to our campfire. There was another raft of cruisers opposite us on Inchconnachan and they were singing round their campfire. One chap was particularly good singing “O sole mio” and other Italian and Scottish songs. At first the boys tried to inject their rugby songs into the gaps but then they applauded and soon we were getting into the boats and sneaking across in the shadows. Shortly we were sitting round their campfire, learning about the loch and enjoying the company.

Sunday was to be the changing of the guards. Colin’s parents brought Isla to the Colquhoun Arms and swapped her for Colin. Ewan and later Olly were struck by a sickness bug, the worst appeared to be over but they felt weak so I took only Colin in the large canoe leaving the others in the camp. It is impossible to separate Colin’s father from a pub so I introduced them to the menu.

Eventually we broke free and headed back for the camp. On the way back we met the sailing canoes racing. There was very little wind but they were moving quickly. All the canoes were different. Some had a simple triangular sail round the mast like a Topper, some had junk rigs, one had a mast that had a cord to rotate it like a reefing jib spar, others had slab reefing. One man was steering with a paddle and was lying in the boat holding his paddle on the lee side. His tacking technique was very intriguing as he had to transfer his leeboard and paddle from one to gunwale to the other while the boat turned, which it did surprisingly quickly. Isla’s tent now replaced Colin’s and we had plenty of food because Colin’s mum had made up a food parcel. At last Olly found his camp bed. The other lads had hidden it behind a tree. I had come across it a few times and moved it under their flysheet so that he was only two feet from it. The boys had been singing songs about it and actually pointed to the tree where it was hidden. Perhaps he realised that it took too much room in the tent.

Isla only had one day in camp because I was worried about the risk of being caught by the weather and we all wanted a go at Ben Lomond. As we loaded I cursed the boys still more for their excessive gear as we were now minus our biggest boat and the dinghies had to be loaded down with deck cargo. The wind was light and dead on the nose so I had to row the Ten and tow the Miracle all the way back to Cashell. It was long and tiring and I was glad to have a shower and shave and gently wander round the camp admiring the sailing canoes.

The next day the plague hit Tim and Paddy. Olly and Ewan still felt weakened and we decided to skip Ben Lomond and end the holiday a day early. I loaded boats and struck tents and Ewan’s friends caught the train a day early. I was trying to contact the parents and warn them and eventually to check that they had arrived while I was taking my two and the six boats over to my mothers.

Later it turned out that the bug had cost the boys between half and one and a half stone, the worst being Olly who had seemed to have recovered and so had not seen a doctor. We thought that it was most likely caught from drinking from a burn while on the walk as only I and Colin were spared and we were the ones who had refrained. On the other hand the four boys were sharing a tent whereas Colin and I had been in separate tents.

However it was voted a successful trip. We hadn’t seen the wallabies on Inchconnachan, nor deer nor goats. Isla saw a Capercaillie which is a rare, aggressive and almost flightless fowl. We had explored some of the loch. We had enjoyed the camping. We had had mostly excellent weather considering the annual rainfall of the area. There had been few midges. The Sixteen still has the hole! Ewan wants to build a trimaran using its rig. I want to put my old canoe rig on the big canoe and develop more designs. Next time I hope it will be with more adults, more children and more canoes, some with sails, but most important less gear.