From the Dorus Mor to Crinan

From the Corryvreckan we had to paddle at a high ferry angle to get round the north end of Reisa an t-Sruith. Once past here we were propelled through the Dorus Mor (the gap behind the paddlers) and thence towards Crinan still at 11km/hr!


All was quiet as we approached Crinan...


...and landed at the slipway...


...after a superb day of tidal assistance.


A trailer makes light work of transporting 4 kayaks on the long road home.

A hidden lagoon in the Sound of Jura.

From the Dorus Mor we paddled towards Coiresa with some difficulty.


The current was carrying us inexorably straight towards the Corryvreckan.


Eventually we broke out of the flood and an eddy carried us up the SE of Coiresa towards Reisa Mhic Phaidean and into the lagoon between the two islands.


The lagoon was a magical place, its clear waters were full of little fish and its bottom was studded with starfish. The flood was pouring out its NW entrance. We dallied for some time, ferry gliding back and forwards, breaking in and out of eddies and enjoying the sensation of holding ground against moving water.


Once we had cleared the islands we found ourselves in another flood stream, which carried us NE up the Sound of Jura and away from the Corryvreckan.

Trying to hold a straight course in the Dorus Mor.

We crossed the Sound of Jura towards Eileen na Cille. We had predicted that the flood tide would start at 10:25. Initially the last of the ebb carried us SW...


...but at 10:20, without any perceptible period of slack, the transits showed the flood had started to carry us NE. Because I hadn't been out recently, I quickly fell behind the others but soon hit on an excellent delaying tactic. "Hold it there for a moment! I see an excellent photo, if I was just a little nearer!"


We broke out of the tide and entered a sheltered lagoon between Eilean na Cille and Garbh Reisa and for the first time saw our ultimate destination, the distant Gulf of Corryvreckan. The feeling of space, after being confined to the house for 5 months following my knee operation, was quite overwhelming. So much so, that for a moment, I thought I was going to loose my balance and capsize on this perfectly flat sea. Only for a moment though! I would certainly need my balance later in this paddle!


Despite the apparent calm in the lagoon, the flood tide was already building and the water level on the east side was higher than on the west side.


We now paddled up the west side of Garbh Reisa. At its north end, an eddy carried us north into the Dorus Mor tide race. Once we crossed the eddy line into the main flow, we were ejected out of the Dorus Mor at a most satisfactory 13km/hr. It was only 25 minutes after the turn of the tide. The tidal rule of thirds does not really apply to the races in this constricted part of the Sound of Jura.


Once we had cleared the race, Phil paused to look back through the Dorus Mor.


We were now heading for the little island of Coiresa. Despite being well clear of the narrows, the sea was still full of boils and eddies. It was difficult to hold a straight course. Jennifer and Tony are both trying to get to the same place!

A trinity of tideraces: circumnavigation of Scarba

Circumnavigation of Scarba: a day trip of 38.5km from Crinan, October 2009.


We rush to pull the kayaks out of the clutch of the sucking white tendrils of the Corryvreckan whirlpool!

The seakayakphoto.com school of sea kayaking: lesson one, paddling in a current.

Crossing the Rubicon in the Dorus Mor

A whiter shade of pale in the Sound of Jura

Pool of the Song in the Sound of Luing

Sleeping Grey Dogs

Friends to watch over you

Free fall on Scarba

Menace hung in the windless air, even for the most daring and venturesome.

Showdown with a goat in the Corryvreckan!

Calculating slack water in the Corryvreckan

The mystery of the goats of Reisa an t-Sruith

Back for more in the Dorus Mor!

End of another Glorious Dorus Day

Crinan's pyroligneous past.

End of another Glorious Dorus Day

The Sound of Jura, beyond the Dorus Mor, is a beautiful place but the tides still run strongly as the ebb from Loch Craignish mixes with that from the Dorus..


Despite her powerful engines, this fishing boat was slewed sideways several times by the strong eddies.


The temperature began to drop as the sun...


... dipped towards the western horizon, bringing to an end another Glorious Dorus Day.

Back for more in the Dorus Mor!

From Reisa an t-Sruith we were transported on a tidal conveyor belt across the Sound of Jura.


We were propelled through the Dorus Mor at 12km/hr.


We broke out into a counter eddy on the north shore of Garbh Reisa and went back for more, several times!


Once through the Dorus Mor we were on the home straight to Crinan.


To the south, the Paps of Jura soared above the dark rocks of Eilean na Cille.

The mystery of the goats of Reisa an t-Sruith

We now were on a course back to the Dorus Mor and Crinan but first we had to clear the north end of tiny Reisa an t-Sruith. Its name means something like the race of the torrent.


Initially we were carried north but very quickly the ebb started carrying us south and we just scraped past its north end under the eye of watchful goats. How they got out here I can't imagine. Either goats are very powerful swimmers with a built in ability to understand tides and ferry angles or they were brought by man. I can understand sheep being left on small islands until they grow for market, but goats?


Overhead, these pink footed geese seemed to know where they were going.
They will recently have arrived from their summer grounds in Spitsbergen Iceland or Greenland. If they get the weather right it does not take them long. This year a mute swan with a GPS tracker took 14 hours to cover 800km from Iceland to Scotland.


Rounding the top of Reisa an t-Sruith, we took a quick look back at the Gulf of Corryvreckan before we were swept onwards to the Dorus Mor.

Crossing the Rubicon in the Dorus Mor

We paddled out of the shady confines of the hills surrounding Loch Crinan and emerged into a sunlit Sound of Jura.


The unmistakable outline of the Paps of Jura defined the horizon to the south west.


We were now in the narrowing northern reaches of the Sound of Jura and the full force of the spring tide was accelerating us towards the tidal channel called the Dorus Mor (the Big Door).


We were harnessing the gravitational energy of the solar system. We were were set on a voyage, like an interplanetary probe that uses the gravitational pull of one planet to accelerate past and slingshot on to the pull of another. But in our case, islands replaced the planets.


As we approached Garbh Reisa, we were about to cross the Rubicon point, beyond which it was not possible to break out of the current. After that point we would be at the mercy of the tides and could only go where they wished to take us!


We were now in the grip of tidal forces that propelled us through the Dorus Mor at 18km/hr.


Once through the Dorus Mor, the tide floods past the little island of Reisa an t-Struith before its headlong dash towards the jaws of the great Gulf of Corryvreckan and its waiting whirlpool...

The seakayakphoto.com school of sea kayaking: lesson one, paddling in a current.

I have not been out for a while, since I dislocated my knee on Gunna. Four months of inactivity have left me pretty unfit. Phil, who has been paddling for less than a year, hadn't done any tidal paddling at all. So given it was a spring tide we thought it would do both of us some good to sample the tide races on the west coast. We set off from Crinan at the top end of the Sound of Jura.


We nipped through the Dorus Mor.Then we paddled quite hard to break out of the current that was heading straight out the Corryvreckan towards distant Colonsay. Next we paddled up the Sound of Luing where we saw a huge school of perhaps 30 or 40 bottlenose dolphins, leaping clean out the water.


After this we went through the Grey dogs at the peak flow of the spring tide, we bashed through the standing waves at 18km/hour. We had been pretty economical with the description of the Grey Dogs that we gave Phil. Just as we passed the point of no return on our approach, Tony quietly said "Phil, see when we turn the corner just after this wee island? Just keep paddling".


Next we paddled down the west side of Scarba and entered the Corryvreckan. The flood was still running out against us but we used an eddy on the Scarba shore to enter the Great Race. Spray from the agitated water hung in the windless air. The eddy ended at a small headland and swung out into the main flow where it joined the rotating mass of water which forms the whirlpool. I said “Phil you need to get round this headland so paddle quite hard and don’t look back.”


We got round the headland and landed in a little bay to wait for the flood to ease off. We had to drag the boats well up the beach as seething surges of water threatened to whisk them away into the jaws of the ‘vreckan. Slack water arrived suddenly and lasted all of five minutes.


We blasted through the Dorus Mor again. The Paps of Jura heaved above the SW horizon. The ebb from Loch Craignish now joined the fun. Even a large fishing boat got caught by the current and sidestepped several hundred metres.All too soon we were back in the shelter of Crinan, a mere 39km after we had left. Not bad after a four month lay off and for Phil’s first lesson in tidal paddling.

Barnacle geese on an early passage north through the Sound of Jura

We finally broke out of the current that was flowing from the Dorus Mor relentlessly towards the gaping jaws of the Gulf of Corryvreckan beyond.


We were now heading north west with the rocky isle of Reisa Mhic Phaidean on our left. All day long, we had watched great skeins of barnacle geese flying north up the Sound of Jura from their wintering grounds on Islay.

They spend the summer on Spitzbergen, some 2700km away to the NNW. I do hope they were not fooled into an early departure by that glorious high pressure spell in February. They normally leave in April and the severe weather since mid February must have made a northward migration almost impossible.

Beyond the geese, you can see Kilmory Lodge on Scarba and the distant mountains of Mull.

12/03/2008

Eddy lines, boils and whirlpools in the Dorus Mor

16:08:18


16:08:20 Something seems to be stirring ahead...


16:08:22 ...thankfully it's only a tiddler!


These photos were taken within the Dorus Mor before we cleared Craignish Point. We were travelling at 12km/hour which equates at 6 knots neaps as marked on the chart. I found myself progressing along an eddy line between a large, upwelling smooth boil on my right and a more disturbed area on the left. As you can see from the small blue segment on the GPS track, this corresponded with a sudden (involuntary) change in direction.

All of a sudden a small whirlpool appeared at the interface and within 2 seconds sucked air down to at least 6 feet below the surface of the crystal clear water. I dropped the camera and snatched my paddle out of the water to perform a reassuring air brace (as one does). Over the next minute I saw another five, near identical, whirlpools along the eddyline. Many years ago from a yacht, I saw about ten similar little whirlpools along another eddy line which forms nearer the Craignish peninsula.

If there had been any wind I would not have seen them, the Dorus would have been a very lively place and I would not have been doing any air bracing!

Our maximum speed was well thorough the Dorus Mor when we reached 16 to 19 km/hr where our track went northwards near where the chart mentions tide rips. We did need to paddle quite hard to break out of the race, otherwise we might have ended up heading for the Corryvreckan. We started paddling north just after we met the whirlpools. You can get some idea of the flow by the large arc of our track.

12/02/2008