Sea kayaking round Burrow Head.

A 32km day paddle from Port William round Burrow Head to Garlieston, Solway Firth,  January 2011.

Approaching Burrow Head near slack water.

Tides

Well off Burrow Head: 

The east going flood starts -0600 HW Liverpool (-0545 HW Dover). 

The west going ebb starts at HW Liverpool (+0015 HW Dover) 

The spring rate is about 3 knots. 

Close in to Burrow Head:

Strong counter eddies become established in the last 2 hours of the flood and the ebb, so close in, the tidal flows turn two hours earlier than the above times: 

The east going flood starts +0430/-0800 HW Liverpool (+0415/-0745 HW Dover). 

The west going ebb starts at -0200 HW Liverpool (-0145 HW Dover) 

Close in the spring rate is about 4-5 knots and there is turbulence at the eddy line. This means that "slack water" close under the rocks occurs when the main race is still stonking off shore. If there is any wind against tide, the main race will look quite scary and the eddy line will create very confused water. As you are approaching the head, to take advantage of the inshore slack, you will see great lumps of water from the main race heaving on the horizon and you can have a bit of a dry mouth before you round the corner and actually see what it is like.

We were so far south that  there was almost a whiff of civilisation in the air.

A peculiarly cold form of burnishment, in Port William.

Less fond of basking sharks than otters.

Touching the past on the way to Burrow Head.

The Devil's bridge of Burrow Head.

Navigational aids: #7 The luncheon beacon.

Home to roost in Garlieston.

Home to roost in Garlieston.

We had enjoyed our sojourn in the Isle Whithorn so much that, by the time we left, the whitewashed houses had a pink glow from a sun that was already sinking in the west.

On leaving the harbour we turned our backs to the sun and turned east...

...into the broad expanse of Wigtown Bay.

We made for Cruggleton Point...

...which is topped by the remains of Cruggleton Castle.

By now the sun was setting and a cold sundowner got up from the east.

Rigg Bay, with its large tidal range, has some similarities to the Normandy coast and was the site chosen to develop the Mulberry harbour modules used in the D Day landings in WW2. Several modules are sunk in the bay.

We landed at Garlieston as the last pink glow of the day left the sky. We witnessed a magnificent display  by a huge flock of starlings coming into roost. Now we had to find our way back to Port William in the dark!

Navigational aids: #7 The luncheon beacon.

Leaving Burrow Head, we paddled past the rather grandly named...

...Isles of Burrow.

Eventually (and remember we were still quite without luncheon) we noticed a white beacon above the line of apparently unbroken rock. Jim was new to the south west but immediately understood its meaning. This was a luncheon beacon!

Through a gap in the rocks, we slipped into Isle of Whithorn harbour.

We landed beside the outer harbour wall and prepared our well deserved victuals. It is not often we paddle non stop for 20km before first luncheon.

Touching the past on the way to Burrow Head.

At Bloody Neuk, about 4km short of Burrow Head, we came across the wreck of the SV Chile, which came to grief here in WW1.

Although she was a sailing vessel, she had steam powered winches...

to work her rigging.

There is nothing quite like touching the wreck of a once great ship...

...as mental preparation for rounding a distant headland, with a notorious tide race.

Less fond of basking sharks than otters.

We paddled down the Machars peninsula and across Monreith Bay. Phil's silhouette was ringed by the bright water of  Luce Bay.

Crazy drystone dykes marched across the Galloway hillsides and raised beaches. I have already mentioned that Port William was planned by Sir William Maxwell. One of his descendants, Gavin Maxwell, fisherman, turned naturalist, then author, was brought up in Elrig, just north of Port William. His books included; The House of Elrig and Ring of Bright Water. This is the story of Edal, an otter he brought from Iraq to Sandaig on the remote north west of Scotland. He was less fond of basking sharks than he was of otters. He established a shark fishery on the island of Soay, south of Skye. By the time he had finished, he had exterminated just about all the basking sharks on the west coast. To commemorate this son of Galloway, a brass otter has been placed on the cliff top high above Monreith Bay.

Right on cue, this fine otter surfaced as we passed below Maxwell's memorial.

It had a crab in its mouth and I heard the crunch of shell as the otter swam past to lunch on the rocks.

The spell of the nine tides!

The complex tide races of the Mull of Galloway change by the minute and can catch out even experienced sailors. Many years ago a Galloway witch sought to undo the good work of the fairies of the cave who looked after sailors in peril. She had been spurned by a particular sailor so she spun a spell that wove nine tides to entrap him at the Mull.


But the sailor heard about her spell and, from that day onwards, he always pulled his boat over the Tarbet and avoided the Mull. He was never caught but the spell of the nine tides is still in place today.

15/12/2008

Remnants of Scotland's ancient forests of oak.

This view, of Beinn Sgritheall from Loch Hourn, is most people's idea of the scenery of Scotland: a wild landscape of bare mountains tumbling into deep sea lochs. It is, however, not natural. It is man made and is a result of deforestation. After the retreat of the last ice age, a beautiful sessile oak forest grew on much of the western sea board of Scotland. It was cut down over the centuries to clear the land for agriculture, to build ships, provide charcoal for the iron industry and tannin for the leather industry.


There are a few surviving pockets of the natural oak forest such as this one at the head of Glen Trool in Galloway.


The forest floor is carpeted with mosses, lichens, ferns and holly.


Another surviving pocket is on the north shore of Fleet Bay on the Solway Firth. Here the oaks grow right down to near the high water mark.

The great western sessile oak forest of Scotland must have been indescribably beautiful.

Home to roost.

I like staying on the water till well after sunset. This April evening was so calm that the only movement was that of a colony of common gulls returning to their noisy roosts on Murray's Isles. I paddled back to the distant Galloway shore and the gulls' calls grew ever more distant as I left their world and returned to mine.

14/04/2007

The mystery of the first of the seven stanes.

On the watershed between Glen Trool and the Dee valley we crested a hill and paused to take in the view of Loch Dee. Rory, the Border terrier, spotted something in the heather.


It was an amazing giant's axe head, carved out of granite and highly polished. Rory looked perfectly at home, in this, his natural environment.


Its surface was inscribed by runic symbols. It was peaceful to sit there, surrounded by the Galloway hills, glens and lochs, wondering what it meant.

It is one of seven stanes. Each is located in one of Southern Scotland's 7 Stanes mountain bike areas.

13/04/2008

The hill tracks of Galloway and the harvest of the sea

From a distance it looks like the hill tracks of Galloway have a dusting of snow.


But as you walk or ride on the tracks, the crunch of this white covering is like no snow.


It is composed of tons of scallop shells which are a by product of the Kirkcudbright scallop fishing industry. There is no more space to dump them at the back of local farmers' fields, so they are now brought up here and dumped on the hill tracks. As the shells break down, the calcium carbonate might do something to reduce the effects of acid rain which has damaged the Galloway hill lochs.

Seeing the sheer number of scallop shells scattered on these hills, you realize just how big the scallop industry is. I know the Irish Sea is a big place but I do hope this proves to be a sustainable fishery.

13/04/2008


The following is an extract from SEPA View, issue 17 Autumn 2003 the magazine of the Scottish Environmental Protection Agency.

Evaluate use of waste scallop shells as road dressing to improve acidity in watercourses

Manager: Stuart Coy

Of 500km of fishless waters in Scotland, Galloway has 400km. Much of this relates to the extensive forest coverage in the area, which exacerbates acid rain. The trees filter out the acid and concentrate it, so when it rains the acidified water runs into the nearby watercourses. In many countries, lime has been successfully used to counteract acidity either by direct addition to water or application over the catchment land. However, this is an expensive and perhaps unsustainable procedure. As scallop shells are 95 per cent limestone in composition and the country’s largest processor of waste scallop shells, West Coast Sea Products, is situated in Galloway, an action plan was established to determine whether the shells could be used as a viable means of reducing levels of acidity in local watercourses. As waste, the shells must be disposed of in a manner that conforms with the exemptions laid out in the Waste Management Licensing Regulations 1994 which permits them to be used in road construction. Two methods are currently being employed. In the first, clean, crushed shells are incorporated into the sub-base aggregates, effectively burying them. The second, more appropriate use, is as a road surface dressing. In theory, the passage of vehicles will speed up the release of calcium.

SEPA Galloway team leader, Stuart Coy said: “This experimental use of shells is still very new to Galloway and the logistics of getting them from the factory to the forest in an acceptable condition are continuing to develop. If it can be made to work then it seems there will be benefits all round. “Should there be a reduction in the quarried aggregate required for road construction, the use of the shells in this way means that they will not be going to licensed landfill which would have cost around £100,000 for disposal. Ultimately, much-needed calcium will be released into acidified surface waters.”

The Merrick and the Galloway hills.

A mountain bike is a great way to get round the Galloway Hills in SW Scotland. The Merrick is the highest hill on the Scottish mainland south of Ben Lomond. Its summit is still iced in the last of the winter snows.


Starting from the car park at the Bruce's stone above Loch Trool, we covered 28km and 900 metres of ascent and decent.

13/04/2008

An unexpected swim.

A force 6 NE wind was blowing down the loch and whipping a frenzy of white horses over its dark cold waters. It is the end of the Scottish winter but the summits of the mountains on Arran and the Galloway hills were still shrouded in a white covering of snow.

Despite the cold we were sweating in our high tech clothing as we battled into the teeth of the wind. All three of us were wearing helmets which shows how seriously we were taking the conditions. We were making slow but steady progress when all of a sudden Tony went over.

He disappeared from sight under the dark water. He had instinctively gone into the roll position but it failed and he was unseated. After what seemed like an age, he eventually surfaced. He was gasping with the cold cold and he couldn't get out of the water. Mike and I manouvered into position on either side of him and we each grabbed a shoulder strap and hauled him out like a fish. Water spewed from his nose, his mouth and his helmet but thank God he was still breathing, though he had completely lost the power of speech.

All the high tech windproof clothing and fleece was completely saturated with icy water. The NE wind chilled him to the marrow. It was a serious situation. Tony was already hypothermic and we were 28km from the nearest shore at Lendalfoot on the Firth of Clyde.

How did we get out of this mess and get ourselves home from this Scottish version of Deep Trouble?

Please scroll down for more....

Galloway lanes and a bridge too far.

Last Sunday it was a bit windy, cold and rough for sea kayaking so Tony and continued our fitness regime by cycling along some Galloway lanes in the Galloway Hills near Loch Doon.


There was quite a lot of rough stuff to negotiate. We did 15km and 360m of ascent and descent and passed hills with wonderful names like Craigmawhannel and Coran of Portmark.


I first biked across this bridge in 1988. I told Tony it was all right then. Unfortunately it was not all right on Sunday. It had been carried away by a winter flood and its two ends were very much attached to the same piece of dry land with not a trace of even damp beneath its timbers. This was now only a bridge by name, its basic function was no more. In truth it had much in common with the Monty Python parrot.

There was another catch. In Galloway a lane is not some quiet country byway along which one can enjoy a gentle Sunday afternoon peddle. It is a deep, often slow moving, river which has cut down through the peat to the granite bed rock up to 12 feet below. We had an interesting dilemma. Should we risk falling into the icy water or turn back through miles of bog and hill? Fortunately the bridge had been built on the site of an ancient crossing and there were some slippy green stepping stones, which we gingerly balanced across. Tony's dog, Bob, was big enough to swim across...but Rory, the border terrier, was too small and so I carried him over.


Otherwise, Rory was well suited to the environment by being tough enough to keep up with us and being perfectly camouflaged. Unfortunately he saw no squirrels (grey).

Here he is near the end of the route on the shore of Loch Doon.

15/12/2007

A tale of lamb chops, coal, caesium, sand, fog, wind mills, government and the environment.

One of my favourite launch spots on the Solway Firth is Dhoon shore on Goat Well Bay. Today I learned from BBC News that SEPA (Scottish Environmental Protection Agency) are investigating the sands for any evidence of radioactive contamination from the Sellafield nuclear plant on the other side of the Solway.

I have no strong feelings against nuclear power but I do expect the operators to run a tight ship and there have been lots of careless lapses both in the UK and elsewhere. There are areas of the Ayrshire and Galloway hills (north of the Solway) where sheep and lambs are still not fit for human consumption due to radioactive caesium fall out from the Chernobyl disaster in 1986.


Elsewhere today, 5,000 Shetland sheep have been slaughtered and buried. They were intended for export to England in the autumn for lamb chops but a government research lab leaked foot and mouth virus. The resulting restrictions on animal movement meant they had to stay on Shetland and now there is no pasture left to feed them.


Now it is not sheep but the wind that is farmed in these hills. Despite the government's recent enthusiasm for wind turbines (and there is a huge offshore development currently being constructed in the Solway) I cannot see that these will meet all our energy needs. Monday dawned in Scotland under clear cold and windless skies.

Cycling through the wind farm in the foggy but clean air of Sunday brought back memories of the smogs of the 1950's caused by burning coal for our energy needs. Of course all the cheap Chinese manufactured goods that are flooding into western Christmas stockings have been made by burning coal but that's on the other side of the world. Isn't it?

Wind turbines on Windy Standard

The weather has not been particularly conducive to sea paddling this weekend so Tony and I decided to go for a little bike run in Galloway instead. We planned to cycle over Windy Standard, a 698m hill in the Carsphairn Forest.


The clear sky of the morning gave way to mist and sleety rain. As we climbed through the clouds we heard a "whoosh whoosh whoosh" long before we saw the wind farm. It was quite surreal cycling along at above 600m in height with 36 turbines all round us. Windy Standard currently generates up to 21.6 megawatts but another 30 turbines are planned. My legs could have done with some of that power.


We got up to 685m which was above the snowline. Bob the dog had never seen snow before.


We needed to stop for a breather, below the cloud line, after a white knuckle descent.


We did 31km and ascended a total of 940m in just under 4 hours. I was quite pleased with that!