Leaving Kylie the lonely dolphin to her buoy friend at the mouth of the West Kyle of Bute...
...we set off across the broad expanse of the Sound of Bute towards...
...the low lying but lovely island of Inchmarnock, which lies off the west coast of its larger neighbour Bute. Inchmarnock was home to St Marnock and long before that to the
Queen of the Inch. The beaches on Inchmarnock's west coast are similar to those of Ardlamont Point. They consist of steep rock shelf with intermittent infill of cobbles. We were unable to land where Tony, Jennifer and I had landed on a previous visit as...
...all the cobbles had gone and the spot was already occupied by one of the famous herd of Inchmarnock organic cattle. However, we were able to land a little further on...
....near where Mike and I had camped almost exactly a year previously.
The steep storm beach of cobbles was stacked high in a series of ledges, which represent the height reached by previous storms with the oldest being at the top.
With a wonderful view over the sea to Arran, it was the ideal place to stop for an extended lunch. Since we were cutting our trip short by a day we had two luncheons to eat. We took our time savouring the last luncheons on our trip. We enjoyed the food and our situation, after all we still had 32km to go and would be paddling late into the summer evening anyway.
