Ardlamont no more....

 From Kildavanan Bay on Bute we set off across the mouth of the West Kyle of Bute towards...

 ...Ardlamont buoy. We were keen to see if Kylie the common dolphin still frequented the environs of the buoy.

Sadly Kylie was no longer there, we do hope no harm has befallen her and she returns, perhaps as before with a calf! We also found that the Ardlamont buoy has been moved 370m to the south of its position on pre May 2012 charts. It just shows make the most of life today. Even seemingly permanent things change and are no more.

 We now paddled towards Ardlamont Point at the SW end of the Cowall peninsula and the ...

 ...delightful little beach at Port nam Muileach where we stopped for...

...second breakfast and to catch up with our news.

The Monday morning Commute to Bute.

This blog has been pretty silent for a long time as my recovery from major surgical operations has been long and hard and I was unable to kayak for seven and a half months.. However, a weather window opened just when I was feeling able to try a camping trip again, my first in nearly a year! Ian, Mike and I exchanged some texts on Sunday and amazingly a trip took shape.

Mike and I commuted to Wemyss Bay rail and ferry station early on Monday morning and arranged to meet Ian in Bute where he was staying with his relatives. The Victorians sure knew how to build public buildings. The Wemyss Bay station served many of the Clyde steamers that took generations of Glaswegians "Doon the Water" for their holidays.

 That bygone age is recalled by the Norman Wilkinson posters which still adorn the station walls.

 Right on time the MV Bute arrived to carry us...

 ...over the Firth of Clyde to...

...the port of Rothesay on the island of Bute.

 A short drive to Kildavanan Bay on Bute's west coast saw us busy packing for our trip.

 It was the first camping trip of the year for each of us but amazingly we each had space to spare...

...darn, we will need to remember to bring more ballast the next time.

Although it was the end of April we decided on dry suits as the water temperature was only 7.5C and our trip would involve some crossings of the mouths of the West Kyle of Bute, Loch Fyne, the Kilbrannan Sound and the Sound of Bute.

Soon we were off on another adventure....

Sea kayaking desktop wallpaper calendar 2014.

I wish a very Happy New Year and a great 2014 paddling season to all visitors to seakayakphoto.com. As way of a celebration of the last year and in anticipation of sea kayaking adventures yet to come, here is the 10th annual sea kayaking desktop wallpaper calendar from seakayakphoto.com. I apologise for its late arrival. Neither my computer nor myself have been in the best of health.

As in past calendars, all the photos were taken during the previous year (2013). Unfortunately I have not been paddling over the last 6 months so the choice of photos has been more limited than previous years. Nevertheless I have been able to choose photos from north and south of Ardnamurchan Point, the Inner Hebrides, the North Channel, the Firth of Clyde and the Solway Firth.

January.

The Little Cumbrae lighthouse in the Firth of Clyde proved surprisingly popular despite being in the depths of winter. We met friends from the Drumchapel and Clydebank Kayak Club there.

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February.

Rubha Carrach is on the exposed northern coast of Ardnamurchan. This coast is not paddled as often as it should be. Most circumnavigators of the British mainland cross to Eigg or Rubh' Arisaig on their headlong dash north. Paddlers staying in the area are faced with a circumnavigation of the whole Ardnamurchan peninsula if they only have one car, or a very long shuttle (over very slow single track) if they have two cars.

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March.

Glenuig Bay opens into the Sound of Arisaig and views extend along the Ardnamurchan peninsula and to Muck and the other Small Isles. One of the great joys of winter paddling is returning in the dark!

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April.

The north coast of Rum in the Sea of the Hebrides is a wild place. This is the sad wreck of the Jack Abry II, a French trawler that ran on to the rocks here just before midnight on the 31st January 2011. Fortunately, despite a gale and the surrounding cliffs and mountains, all 14 men on board were airlifted to safety by the Stornoway coastguard helicopter.

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May.

The Mull of Kintyre is a rather committing paddle. The tide was moving at  6 knots and even in benign conditions there was no landing for 25km. It sticks out into the North Channel which separates Scotland from Ireland. On this misty day there was no sign of Ireland and we felt like we were paddling round the edge of the World.

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June.

Kylie the dolphin can often be found near Ardlamont buoy at the

mouth of the the Kyles of Bute.

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July.

Murray's Isles lie in the mouth of Fleet Bay on the Solway Firth. In early summer they host noisy colonies of cormorants and gulls. The cormorants need to keep a watchful eye on their eggs and chicks as the gulls swoop down on any unguarded nest. It is a wonderful experience to drift in the tide past the colonies in kakak and watch, hear and smell the constant activity.

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August.

Nothing can be finer than paddling across the mouth of Loch Fyne on a summer evening.

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September.

The surf beach at Machrihanish is exposed to the North Atlantic swell and extends for over 6 kilometers. It is probably wise not to surf a fully laden sea kayak in amongst the surfers. The dune system behind the beach is one of the largest in Scotland.

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October.

Shoe Bay is easily missed as it is hidden in the skerries at the mouth of Loch Moidart. The name comes from the very soft sand which swallows footwear!

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November.

The dramatic outline of An Sgurr is the highest point of Eigg in the Sea of the Hebrides.

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December.

This is the view to the Small Isles from the silver sands of Morar Bay.  The bay is shallow and tidal and in a westerly wind, steep breaking waves build up as the ebb tide rushes over sandbars. On this trip the wind was from the east and all was calm.

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Kylie the lonely dolphin: a tale of anthropomorphism and anthropology at Ardlamont and the West Kyle buoy.

We had paddled from Ardlamont Point out into the entrance of the West Kyle of Bute, when we were stopped in our tracks. Both Mike...

...and Jennifer (not to mention Phil and myself) could hardly believe their eyes.

A solitary common dolphin was circling the navigation buoy. Mike and I had seen her exactly a year previously at the...

...same buoy but then she was accompanied by a calf. Common dolphins are summer visitors to the West coast of Scotland and are usually seen in  large pods of 10 to 30 but...

...sometimes they congregate in super pods of several hundred to 1,000. I saw this pod of about 50 that were riding the wake of the Skye to Harris ferry in June 2011.

I don't know why Kylie has chosen a solitary life. Clearly she can't be completely alone, since she has recently had a calf, but she does seem to prefer the company of this buoy to a pod. Given the intelligence of dolphins, I assume she has made a choice, if that is not being too anthropomorphic.

She has been seen here since at least the summer of 2011 and it was a real thrill to come across her again as she toyed with us, circling and diving beneath us then reappearing where we least expected her.

If we tried to paddle away from her buoy she would catch us up swim along side us, easily keeping up no matter how fast we paddled then with a flick of her tail she would streak ahead of us.

Kylie clearly enjoys interacting with visitors to her buoy and she has become a tourist attraction. Many kayakers, boaters, yachtsmen and hundreds of tourists from around the World on the Paddle Steamer Waverley have been fortunate to see her here.

In some countries people like to eat dolphins (not to mention killing them first). Well I am not a hypocrite, I swat flies, I eat cows, I catch fish, kill them then eat them and my ancestors were whalers. However, I could not eat a dolphin, a creature which, due to its degree of intelligence, can interact with other dolphins (and humans) at a much higher level than cows can. In some countries they eat chimpanzees, in others dogs and in some places cannibalism is also traditional. I do not eat chimps, dogs or my neighbours either. It is up to each of us to draw our own line at what we choose to eat but I am glad that in the UK dolphins are protected and that Kylie will not end up barbequed on a British beach. Chacun à son goût.

As a Briton I am aware that there are many things that are not right in British society and we need to listen to and learn from others' criticism to make our society better. However, because Britain is so multicultural  it is a factor that makes it one of the more progressive societies to live in today. We are all learning from one another and as a result respecting and increasingly adopting what is good about each others' cultures. We also need to respect other countries'  rights to determine what is acceptable and legal for their people but that does not mean we need to agree with others' practices just because they are traditional. Other human traditions include burning witches, child sacrifice, incest, childhood female circumcision and on a bigger scale, slavery and genocide. I don't agree much with them either, no matter how much their proponents may argue for their continuation on cultural and traditional grounds or accuse their critics of cultural imperialism.

So there you have it, it's a free World (for humans). If you want to see dolphins come to Scotland, if you want to eat dolphins, you are free to go somewhere else. It's your choice. As humans we are fortunate that we are often able to make choices.

Ferry gliding across the Kyles of Bute.

Night was drawing in as we left Eilean Dubh heading for the East Kyle. We took a last look down the West Kyle before we entered the tidal channel that runs through the Burnt Islands. The tide had turned against us, so we ferry glided from one island to the other, making use of the eddies. In the gloom of the twilight the scene was quite different...

...from the misty sunshine we had seen on the Burnt Islands when we drove the shuttle over the high pass that morning.

As we approached Colintraive, we discovered we were not the only ones ferry gliding across the Kyles of Bute! The skipper of the MV Loch Dunvegan came over for a friendly chat as we were packing up. It turns out that although the crossing is only 5 minutes, it is one of the busiest CalMac srvices in terms of vehicles carried per day and the number of launches and landings. I remember using the MV Loch Dunvegan to cross to Skye in the days before the Skye Bridge was opened in 1995. She was built in 1991 at Fergusons Yard in Port Glasgow. After leaving Skye she was relief vessel on various crossings until she moved to the Kyles of Bute route in 1999.

We finished the day with a tasty meal and chat with the locals in the Colintraive Hotel, which we have visited before! The hotel can even arrange kayak tuition for its guests. If staying in a hotel is over budget or if there is good weather Carry Farm camp site is right on the shore further down the West Kyle. Lower Loch Fyne and the Kyles of Bute make a fantastic sea kayaking destination.

Preparations for invasion in Caladh Harbour.

Near the head of the Kyles of Bute we first passed a monstrosity of a fish farm but then approached the beautiful wooded isle of Eilean Dubh.

A stone lighthouse marks the entrance to the delightfully hidden Caladh Harbour which nestles behind the isle. The light has long gone but the whitewashed tower is a great landmark for the harbour beyond.

Not much remains. A rusting derrick still swings over a stone pier. However, from 1942 until 1945, during WW2 this was a hive of activity. HMS James Cook, a shore based station for training landing craft crew, was based here. Exercises in the Kyles of Bute and beyond prepared the sailors for crossing to and landing on the distant beaches of Normandy on D day.

Today the harbour is a quiet anchorage for visiting yachtsmen and a pleasant diversion for itinerant sea kayakers. We left by the north entrance, marked by another stone beacon. Few visitors will guess the important part this quiet backwater in our history.

A house on the hill in the Kyles of Bute.

 Just north of Kames in the Kyles of Bute lies the delightful village of Tighnabruaich. Its Gaelic name means "house on the hill". Nowadays many houses tumble down the steep hill, almost on top of one another, right down to the shore. We wondered if this was a secret waterside entrance to the Burnside Bistro!

Tignabruaich has long been famed as a sailing centre. There are so many water users in the Kyles that the RNLI have an Inshore Rescue Boat stationed in the village. This is the modern lifeboat station and slipway.

It was near the end of the season and most of the yachts were now lifted from the water and lined up on their winter standing. However, a few hardy souls were still enjoying the short, late autumn days on the water. It was not just yachtsmen and us sea kayakers. We had a very pleasant chat with a chap in a rowing shell. He had spotted it languishing under weeds at Otter Ferry and made an offer!

North of Tignabruaich we stopped for afternoon tea at Rubha Ban. In the distance we could see the wooded isle of Eilein Dubh. This would be our next destination in the delightful waters of the Kyles of Bute.

We came to Kames in the Kyles of Bute.

 Rounding Ardlamont Point, we left Loch Fyne and came to the sheltered waters of the Kyles of Bute.

Unlike the rugged west coast of the Cowal peninsula, the countryside was much gentler, fertile farms and woodlands came right down to the shore.

We arrived at the settlement of Kames and  a large sign caught our attention...

...so we decided to land and investigate further.

On the way up to the entrance to the Kames Hotel we passed this little rowing boat that had clearly seen better days...

 ...indeed these days were clearly illustrated in this mural on the hotel wall. By the looks of things, the fishing was better then too!

We entered the public bar and were warmly welcomed despite our sea kayaking attire. The Guinness was excellent and most welcome.

As a warning to those seafarers who might be tempted to indulge in one pint too many, these two photos on the bar wall...

...caught my eye, a splendid subliminal warning!

Anyway, the Kames Hotel proved to be a truly excellent sea kayaking pub, conveniently situated and well worth coming to!