We visit
Seil and its Sound regularly. We have been three times in the last year. My first visit by kayak and sailing dinghy was in July 1967, so I do like the area a great deal.
This view is towards the NE from
Bagh Lachlainn at the north end of the island of Luing.
On the east side of the Sound (on the right horizon) lies...
...the delightful little bay of
Port na Morachd which is just to the north of...
this band of trees and under the steep slopes of Dun Crutagain (273m).
I was dismayed when I learned from the
Save Seil Sound campaign that a Polish company plans to build a huge fish farm consisting of 12 cages, each 32m in diameter, covering an area of 4 football pitches on this very spot. There will also be a service barge 18m by 26m with a two storey building on top. When it is running it will contain 450,000 adult salmon and you can imagine the effect of the pollution and parasites which a farm of this size will release. Seil Sound is very enclosed and shallow and I am sure that the wild life will suffer even more than the view.
Speaking of the view, this is looking SSW down the Sound towards Torsa, Luing and Scarba.
This is looking NW towards Seil with the mountains of Mull behind. We have seen porpoises, seals, otters, herons, cormorants, shags, terns, guillemots, black guillemots, razorbills, oyster catchers, eider duck, geese, swans, eagles, buzzards and hen harriers here. I will be very sorry if this wild place is industrialised in this way.
If you wish to make a comment, either for or against the proposed fish farm, to the
Argyll and Bute planners you can do so here.
If you support the c
ampaign to save Seil Sound, you can
join them on Facebook here.
First I had heard Douglas but thanks for the info. I guess the (tidal) currents are swift there and hence will help disperse the decaying food and fish droppings that presumably are attractive to parasites etc, so good for the owners. Seems a bit like siting nuclear plants on the coast - very handly for getting rid of 'small' amounts of radioactivity, isn't it? Unfortunately the environment as we all now know can only take a limited amount of such abuse before the poor planet self-destructs.
ReplyDeleteSo sad to hear this news Douglas. Sounds like another Tighnabruaich, only on a much much bigger scale :-(
ReplyDeleteThis is not good, and neither is the one that I heard of earlier this year that may potentially be situated off Cable Bay on Colonsay, one of the beaches in the "SNH top 20". They are becoming THE blight of the west coast.
ReplyDeleteHello, David, Phil and Vince, I have just heard of yet another huge fish farm proposal off Eigg!
ReplyDelete:o(