Grey Moidart skies and green seas

As we carried the boats to the water's edge, low grey clouds were streaming from the summits of hidden mountains to to our east.

Under the grey skies the shallow water appeared an almost luminous green that matched the green of the machair we had just left.

 Although the clouds were scudding over head we...

 ...were paddling in the lee of the cliffs until...

...we passed the ancient crofting township of Smirisary. "Spade among the rushes" is an evocative book by Margaret Leigh. It describes her hardships trying to recover an abandoned croft here after WW2 as she tried to make a living to support herself and her mother.

 Once past Smirisary our bows began to turn east into the Sound of Arisaig and the wind picked up.

 We got a little respite as we passed close under Rubha Ghead a' Leighe but...

 ...then it was heads down as the easterly wind funnelled out of the Sound of Arisaig.

It was a cold, fitful wind and I could only snatch photos in the short lulls. My hands were numb with the cold and at one point I nearly dropped my camera trying to get a photo of the clouds streaming of the summit of Rois-Bheinn (878m).

Then we arrived in the shelter of Salalaman Bay just as a...

 ...blink of sun provided a moment's warmth before the rain started. It was here where we had left our shuttle car and our journey through and round the lands of Moidart came to an end.

On our previous trip we had left the shuttle car at the head of Loch Ailort. I am glad the weather forecast had accurately predicted the strong easterly!

For whom the bell tolls on `St Finan's Isle.

We arose well before dawn. It was cold in the still morning air by the shore of Loch Shiel. That cold of course is what kept the midges away. A few months earlier and a windless morning like this would have been Shiel hell with midges.

We left the tents up till they were nearly dry and...

 ...loaded the boats all before...

 ...the rising sun's rays hit the beach.

Soon we were back on the loch and as we approached a...

 ...wooded narrowing, we turned a slight bend and  there before us lay...

 ...St Finan's Isle which almost blocks  the loch. It is a moraine island which formed as the glacier which cut Loch Shiel melted depositing its rubble. At one time it probably dammed back the waters of the loch raising the shoreline.

 We landed at the old stone jetty where generations of locals have brought the remains of their dead...

...to be buried within its relatively soft soil.

 Stones of various ages crowd the summit of the isle around the...

 ...ancient walls of St Finan's chapel. It was built in about 1500 by the chief of the Clanranald to  replace an earlier wooden structure. It was abandoned in the late 1600's so was already a ruin by the time Bonnie Prince Charlie came this way in 1745, on his way to Glenfinnan at the head of the loch. Almost certainly the Prince would have stopped here and made his way up to the chapel. St Finan (the leper) was born in Ireland and is thought to have lived between about 520 and 600. Several places in Scotland and Ireland are named after him. He is not to be confused with the later St Finan (of Lindisfarne) who died in 661 after becoming Bishop of Lindisfarne.

At the east end of the chapel lies the altar backed by a recess, which contains a stone cross. On the altar is a remarkable object. It is a Celtic seamless cast bronze bell. Amazingly it has been here for over a thousand years. Nowadays it is chained up but it is amazing that it has survived the millennia without being plundered. Of course there is a dreadful curse attached to the bell and any one who stole it would regret doing so for every second of their few remaining days... During an internment, the bell is taken down to the jetty and rung at the head of the cortège as they slowly make their way up to the waiting grave.

The bell has a remarkably pure tone and it is always a pleasure to ring it. How many objects round us today will still be in full working order in 1,000 years time?

The chapel offered a clear view down the lowland outer loch which contrasted... 

 

...with the mountains that crowded the long inner loch.

All too soon it was time for us to leave the peaceful isle. We could just have paddled past but why race through life? It's those that rush, for whom the bell tolls...

For the full stereo vision experience read Ian's account here:

Sunset at Fidden: episode two.

 Although Fidden on the Ross of Mull is a commercial campsite, in many ways it really is like a a wild camp site with showers. After a nice warm shower we returned to the tents to discover that the wind had dropped and the midges had come out. Ian and I set up our chairs on a little knoll to eat our meal. A little breeze up there mitigated the midges somewhat and the view was excellent.

 After dining we set up a small fire (we had brought logs) below HW mark. While Ian and I opened cans of our favoured Irish sports recovery drink, Alan and Donald were already checking through their numerous sunset photos!!

 Not to be out done, Ian and I soon got snapping too.

As the sun dipped to the horizon it took on first an...

 ...orange glow before turning...

 pinkish red.

Of course living so far from the equator has its advantages. Very often the twilight after sunset is even better than sunset itself and so...

 ...it proved. This was an hour and a half after sunset.

Behind us the white buildings of Fidden were still illuminated with a delicate warm glow and were standing out against the inky black night sky behind.

A beach named desire.

We left the dark gneiss rocks of Iona and Eilean Annraidh and dodged the high speed tour boats in the Sound of Iona. This is Staffa Tours MV Ullin of Staffa. In the background you can see The Dutchman's Cap  or Bac Mor in the Treshnish Isles. It is a former volcano and consists of a central volcanic plug surrounded by a sill of basalt.

 On the east side of the Sound of Mull we returned to pink granite bedrock and the delightful village of Kintra which is derived from the gaelic Ceann Traigh or head of the beach. My good friend, colleague and former climbing partner, the late Dr John Tolmie and his partner bought one of these cottages. He hoped I would get him started sea kayaking but sadly he died in a climbing accident in March 2014 before we could get on the water. What a loss, I have no doubt he would have taken to sea kayaking.

 We were headed for Market Bay on the...

 ...north shore of the Ross of Mull.

 We floated in to the eastern most beach of the two beaches that open from the bay.

 The sands here were devoid of visitors though the...

 ...other beach Traigh na Margaidh (market beach) often has walkers. The beach we landed on is more difficult to access and is called Traigh Eilean an t-Santachaidh (beach of the island of lust). Why our ancestors called this remote spot the beach of the island of lust I cannot begin to imagine.

 Traigh Eilean an t-Santachaidh is a truly exceptional beach with...

 ...bold tors of pink granite backed by dunes topped by...

 ...green machair which falls away to a...

 ...beach of perfect pinkish sand which reputedly reflects...

...your heart's desire when wet.

Saint Columba's tears on Iona

On the second day of our trip to the Ross of Mull and Iona we awoke  to a splendid morning at Fidden. Actually we had been awake for some time. There was an order to the ornithological choir that entertained us through the night. The drumming of the snipe had started before we went to bed only to be followed by the rasping repetitive call of the corncrake which was interrupted only by the equally repetitive call of the cuckoo at first light but thankfully dawn brought the more subtle calls of the meadow pipit and skylark. It was wonderful.

 We set off across the Sound of Iona with the Abbey of Iona on the horizon. Iona is a place of pilgrimage for hundreds of thousands each year. Most pilgrims think that it was St Columba (521 to 597) who first brought Christianity to Scotland when he landed in Iona from Ireland in 563. However, this is nonsense as the earliest Christian relic in Scotland is the Latinus stone at Whithorn in Galloway. It dates from about AD 450. Whithorn was established by St Ninian (c.360-c.432) in 395 which predates the introduction of Christianity to Ireland. Columba had been effectively exiled to Scotland after copying St Finian's Latin bible and starting the Battle of Cúl Dreimhne which resulted in  the death of 3,000 people. However, the religious settlement founded by St Columba on Iona went on to serve as a beacon of Christian learning and spread enlightenment through both Scotland and Ireland. Indeed the famous Book of Kells in Ireland which is described as "Ireland's greatest cultural treasure and the world's most famous medieval manuscript" was actually made in here in Iona in Scotland!

Starting in 795 Iona suffered repeated sacking by the Vikings and some monks escaped with the Book to Kells in Ireland. What is less well known is that in 1204 the bishops of Tir Eogain and Tir Connail and the abbots of Derry and Armagh sacked Iona and razed it to the ground as they resented its continuing influence over the church in Ireland and its popularity as a religious shrine for pilgrims. They wanted the pilgrim business for their own shrines so they then spread propaganda that Iona had been a simple satellite of the church in Ireland and this misconception has lasted down the centuries, particularly in Ireland.

Whatever your reasons for visiting Iona you will fall in love with the place as soon as you set foot there. We landed on on this glorious shell sand beach on the SE coast.

We could not resist beachcombing and I was delighted to find two cowries and a small pebble called a "St Columba's tear". It is green translucent serpentine marble. They are quite hard to find these days as every visitor to Iona wants to find a piece.

Ian has the best eye for cowries I know...this was his haul!

It is not just the Iona marble that is green...

...the seas round the dark rocks of Lewisian gneiss are also...

...luminous green.

This pink boulder of Ross of Mull granite is an erratic, brought across the Sound of Iona by ice during the Ice Age. This is not the only place we have encountered an erratic from the Ross of Mull. We recently found one on the Mull of Ross on the Solway coast.

Thy dark grey of the Lewisian gneiss on the...

...south coast of Iona is quite a contrast to the pink granite of the Ross of Mull which is less than 3 miles to the east. We came to a gully where lighter metamorphic rocks have been forced through the surrounding gneiss. This is the Iona marble which was quarried and used in the building of churches across the world. Rusting machinery can still be seen above the rocks.

The complex and varied geology of Scotland...

...is one of the reasons it is so good for sea kayaking.

We had now reached the southernmost point of Iona at Rubha na Carraig-geire (headland of the sharp pinnacle) where...

...we turned to the west and came upon Port na Curaich (port of the coracle). This is where St Columba is reputed to have first set foot with 12 companions on Iona in 563. He reputedly climbed a knoll and looked back towards Ireland. When he had reassured himself that Ireland could no longer be seen he turned his back to that land and settled on Iona where he would atone for his previous sins with a life of piety.