A brief blaze of setting sun at Bracken Bay.

On our way north to Ayr, we could not help but frequently stop, drift and listen to the perfect silence. Actually it wasn't quite a perfect silence. An occasional distant pip of an oystercatcher or mournful call of a curlew could just be discerned but they just served to delineate and accentuate those periods of complete silence in between.

It seemed a shame to disturb the silence with our noisy splashing but we knew that darkness would fall well before we arrived back at Seafield. On the horizon the dark pyramid of Holy Island was merging into the gathering clouds and Arran mountains behind as...

 ...we approached the dark basalt cliffs of...

 ...the Heads of Ayr. The cliffs were briefly illuminated by a blaze of the setting sun as it burst through a gap in the low clouds but...

...by the time we paddled into Bracken Bay, we were already in the cold shade of the approaching winter night.

Pogies at sundown.

 We left Dunure in a glassy calm and Phil quickly put his sail away for the rest of the day, which was...

 ...quickly slipping away as the sun began to dip behind the ancient walls of Dunure castle.

 We paddled along enjoying each others' company just as much as the view over...

 ...the Clyde to the snow capped peaks of Arran.

Behind us a band of cloud crept in giving advance notice of an approaching cold front, which was to bring gale force winds and rain the following day.

The sky above us was still clear and so the  air temperature dropped like a stone. Even though there was no wind, we had to stop to put our pogies on as our fingers had turned to icicles.