Sea kayaking desktop photo calendar 2007.

January
Looking northeast from Sgeir a'Ghail, Loch Nevis, to Knoydart.


February
Cailean Macleod at Coldingham Bay, Scottish Borders.


March
The distant Cuillin mountains of Skye are seen to the south west from Eilean Stacan, Loch Carron.


April
The Scarba shore of the Gulf of Corryvreckan at slack water. 15 minutes later we were doing 18km/hr without paddling!


May
No, it's not Scotland! It is the wonderful reef of Les Ecrehous 10.5km NE off the NE corner of Jersey in the Channel Islands.


June
Looking towards the grey hills of Lewis from Scarp.


July
The entrance of Loch Rog, Lewis.


August
The Sound of Harris from Bearnaraigh.


September
Sea stacks at Cliobh, Lewis.


October
Paddling out to Bearasaigh and Seana Chnoc, Lewis.


November
The tidal Clachan Sound runs under the "Bridge over the Atlantic", Nether Lorn.


December
Sunset down the Sound of Jura from Loch Caolisport, Knapdale.

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May 2007 be good to you.

Psalm 59 on Scarp

In a recent post I mentioned the remote island of Scarp off the west coast of Harris in the Outer Hebrides. After the failure of rocket mail its inhabitants were finally connected to the mainland by submarine telephone in 1947. It was destroyed by a storm in 1970 and the GPO refused to replace it. The islanders finally evacuated Scarp in 1971. By tradition they had left a Bible in each house. By the summer of 2006 the houses were in a sorry state after 35 years of winter storms. In one house pages of a bible had blown about the windowless room.



Some days later we met the gentlemen in the centre of the photograph on Canna in the Inner Hebrides. It turned out he had grown up on Scarp until his family emigrated to Glasgow. We had a book about Scarp Hebridean Island, Memories of Scarp. He was able to identify many of the individuals in old photographs reproduced in the book.

Rocket Mail launched after 5 year countdown.

The film "Rocket Mail" was released today just 5 years after it was completed. It is based on the story of a German rocket scientist who came to the remote island of Scarp in the Outer Hebrides. In the 1930’s the first of a pair of twins was born on Scarp but there were complications and there was no phone to summon help. The second twin could not be delivered until the next day. The mother had to be transported across the Kyle of Scarp to Harris and then Stornoway in Lewis by boat, bus and car, some 72 kilometres distant.

Herr Zucher heard this story and set up a demonstration of rocket mail to allow the islanders to summon help in an emergency. Unfortunately the British would not let him use his own fuel and the rocket exploded scattering the charred remnants of the mail. Worse, the Nazi’s later imprisoned him as a British collaborator.



The BBC recreated the rocket launch for its superb series Coast.




The Sound of Scarp, across which the rocket was fired. Can sea kayaking get any better than this?