After transiting the Corryvreckan, we arrived in the Sound of Jura. The ebb tide had built rapidly and we were making 10km/hr with little paddling effort. Our destination was our starting point at Carsaig Bay. This lay 12.5km down tide but 6.5km across tide on the far side of the Sound of Jura. It did not take a mathematician...
...to calculate that we needed to paddle across the sound at a high ferry angle to avoid...
...being swept past our destination and out to the open sea beyond.
So we paddled almost straight across the Sound so that the vector of our paddling and the tide would take us safely to our destination. The Paps of Jura seemed to get nearer very quickly!
Fortunately there is a good marker of whether we were making sufficient progress. The tide swept islet of
Ruadh Sgeir (Red Rock), with its little lighthouse, lies in the middle of the Sound of Jura and is in a straight line between the Corryvreckan and Carsaig Bay.
Despite being carried along at 11km/hr as we approached the lonely rock, we managed to cross uptide of it so we were bang on course. It was a beautiful evening and despite being very tired...
...we enjoyed passing so close to this seldom visited little rock with its views to the Paps of Jura. Sam and I even revelled in breaking out of the tide into the eddy on the far side of the rock....
Some edge control was required to break back into the stream that was running round the rock at 14km/hr! The tide then continued to carry us on towards Carsaig Bay and the end of our journey.
