Showing posts with label 0. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 0. Show all posts

Thursday, August 20, 2015

Seals and boats on the east coast of Inchmarnock.

As we paddled up the east coast of Inchmarnock we came to the abandoned farm at Midpark. 

On the shore below Midpark lie the sad remains of the wooden ferry MV Dhuirnish. The Dhuirnish was built as a turntable ferry in 1956 for J & A Gardner Ltd. who operated the Taynuilt/Bonawe route across Loch Etive until the service closed in 1966. In 1967 the Bute Ferry Co. Ltd. bought her, removed the turntable and fitted a bow ramp. They operated her on the Colintraive/Rhubodach crossing in the Kyles of Bute where she carried six cars at a time. During the Great Storm on the 14th January 1968 she sank at her mooring in Colintraive. She was raised and re-entered.service the following summer. She remained on the crossing until June 1971. By September 1971 she had had two further owners but it is not known how she ended up on Inchmarnock.

Further north we came to the modern farm buildings and slipway at  Northpark where the MV Marnock was moored. She was built on Bute in 1999 for the Inchmarnock Estate who...

 ...rear a pedigree herd of Highland cattle here.

It was now too hot for our dry suits so we landed near the north of Inchmarnock to disrobe.

 No sooner had we landed than an inquisitive group of about 30 common seals surrounded us.

 The water looked so inviting that I joined them for a quick swim.

This fellow was not for moving, despite the interest shown by his fellow members of  the Welcome to Inchmarnock committee.
 Feeling much cooler we  continued on our way towards...

 ...the north of the island where...

...a large rocky spit  makes a good place to land to explore the north of the island. It was near here where the stone cist containing the 4,000 year old remains of the "Queen of the Inch" were found.

Thursday, April 28, 2011

Away with the fairies and an unconformity on Arran!

Ahead of us, the Cock of Arran suddenly emerged into the sunshine from the thick mist of early morning.

All was grey looking back along the north shore of Arran.

High above us, the mountains were still wreathed in mist.

 We now paddling west past beaches dominated by giant boulders.

This part of Arran is known as Fairy Dell.

It was seen as the entrance to another World, a World inhabited by fairies.

Fairy Dell cottage is in private ownership and is not a bothy.

An Arran legend tells of a group of local fairies who decided to set sail for Ireland. Unfortunately they were not the best of navigators and their boat was washed up on a mysterious island, just off the shore of Arran. They never got to Ireland and have remained on the island ever since. Every so often the island reappears out of the mist. If you should find an uncharted island off the coast of Arran, it is probably best not to land as the fairies will steal your boat and leave you marooned for a very long time. This old boat would be no good to the fairies, it has seen better days. You might not believe in the fairies but consider this. What do you do when you have finished eating a boiled egg from the shell? You probably stick the teaspoon through the bottom of the empty shell... so that the fairies can't use it as a boat!

In 1787 the rocks on this coast gave James Hutton, the geologist, the idea that the Earth isa much older than it had been previously thought. The steeply dipping Cambrian Dalriadan schists in the foreground are overlaid by more recent Carboniferous Old Red Sandstone seen in the cliffs behind the shore. This was the first unconformity that Hutton discovered and based his theories upon.