The Mull of Galloway, Scotland's most southern coast.

From Lunnock Caave  we paddled towards Carrickcarlin Point which...

 ...lies below the Mull of Galloway lighthouse and its foghorn.

 A characteristic feature of the Mull of Galloway cliffs is the bright yellow lichen. In spring and early summer this is spattered by the white of the sea bird colonies guano.

 Carrickcarlin Point is one of the four most southerly points in Scotland.

 The south coast of the Mull runs east west and from Carrickcarlin Point in the east this is the view...

...to the west showing Lythe Mead, Gallie Craig and just the shoulder of Carrick Kee.

 I paddled out to get a decent view of...

 ...the lighthouse which is hidden from the base of the cliffs.

 Below the foghorn is the entrance to...

...Seals Cave which is big enough to drive...

...several double decker buses in. The depths of the cave were very colourful.

Lythe Mead lies directly below the visitor centre and unsurprisingly they claim this to be the most southerly point in Scotland.

This is the view from Lythe Meade back east to Carrickcarlin Point.

Beyond Lythe Mead there is a deep geo called Foxes Rattle. This is looking out at Lythe Mead and the stack Inchshannoch.

This is the head of the Rattle and...

...this is a cave in its north west wall.

The next headland we came to was Gallie Craig.

Beyond the Craig the tide was already running strongly towards the west.

This is the view from Gallie Craig looking back...

...towards Lythe Mead and Carrick carlin Point.

At the Gallie Heughs we got our last view back to the lighthouse which is hidden from view from...

...the fourth headland at Carrick-Kee. So which of these headlands is the furthest south? Well it is a close run thing but the sea was so calm I was able to touch each headland. These are the northings from my GPS unit:

Carrickcarlin Point   N54 38.026
Lythe Mead              N54 38.013
Gallie Craig              N54 37.999
Carrick-Kee              N54 37.989

So Carrick-Kee just makes it as the most southerly point in Scotland based on latitude. That is further south than the mouth of the River Tees on England's east coast!

Note that the OS grid north is canted with respect to true north and the most southerly point with respect to grid north may be different.

Beyond Carrick-Kee the interest continued with more cliffs...

...and caves.

At Carrickcorrie you will turn NW and see the north shore of West Tarbet Bay. When the west going stream is running along the south coast of the Mull of Galloway you will encounter an adverse SE going eddy at this point. If it is windy from the NW it can be hard work breaking through this.

All calm in the Lunnock Cave at the Mull of Galloway.

The 16th dawned to be one of the few sunny, calm days in August. It was ideal for a trip to the Mull of Galloway.

Tony and I dropped a shuttle car at Port Logan on the west coast of the Rhins of Galloway then met Phil and Maurice at the East Tarbet. Inshore, the west going ebb starts at -1:30 HW Dover. HW Dover was at 13:10 so slack water was at 11:40 and we launched bang on time at 11:10.

The NE side of the Mull is a grassy slope and gives very little warning of the dramatic rock architecture beneath the lighthouse just 500m away on the other side of the peninsula.

The waters of Luce Bay to the NE were calm unlike a previous visit when we hit the Mull at maximum tidal flow!

 We rounded the critical point at Lagvag at slack water and entered the Lunnock Cave...

...for a celebratory exploration. If you do get caught out in the Mull of Galloway tide race, the Lunnock Cave would make a marvellous place to wait for calmer conditions as the...
.

...vicious eddylines at its mouth kill the swell.

Some glorious paddle sailing down Dunagoil way.

 From Scalpsie Bay we paddled down the east coast of Bute with the mountains of Arran on...

 ...our right pulling our eyes away from...

 ...the coast of Bute which was mostly rocky with a raised beach above. Beyond the beach there was now dry line of sea cliffs with occasional caves.

As we crossed Dunagoil Bay we came out of the lee of Ardscalpsie Point and the wind began to increase again.

 We fairly shot down the coast past St Blane's Hill with some glorious paddle sailing which...

Photo Ian Johnston.
...was pretty hard work as we tried to catch every wave! My GPS showed we were regularly hitting 14km/hr as we caught the waves. This photo by Ian shows me in the new P&H Scorpio MV mark 2 with sail and skudder. I have this out on a long term test and I hope it will be in a forthcoming issue of Ocean Paddler magazine. I really like it. The skudder (a combined skeg rudder) is incredibly well engineered and very effective. I did notice that when I was using it downwind in rudder mode that I was falling behind Ian and Mike who had similar sails and were paddling P&H Cetus MVs. So I raised it into skeg mode then I found I had no trouble keeping up even though they were in GRP kayaks and the Scorpio is made from roto moulded polyethylene.

 Rounding Dunagoil Hill and Garroch Head was great fun as the flood tide was now against the wind.

 Once in the lee of Garroch Head the wind dropped again and we leisurely paddled round to...

...Glencallum Bay where we unpacked our kayaks for first luncheon.

The northern Sound of Islay, the sound of superlatives.

The north half of the Sound of Islay is blessed with...

 ...some amazing rock architecture on the Jura shore. We were treated to more dykes, arches,...

 ....caves and stacks.

 We were enjoying the view so much that we kept close inshore out of the main south going flow.

 The Islay shore was also not without its delights. This is the Bunnahabhain distillery.

 Meanwhile back on the Jura shore the succession of caves and...

 dykes continued.

 Then gradually the Sound narrowed and as we approached...

 ...the lighthouse at Carragh an t-Sruith the full force of the ebb tide caught us and we sped south at 13km/hr.

 The next Islay delight was the Caol Ila distillery very rapidly followed by...

...Port Askaig, where the ferries from Kintyre, Jura, Colonsay and Oban call. This evening it was only the Eilean Dhiura, the Jura ferry, that was in port.

As we reflected on what we had seen in our rapid transit of the northern Sound of Islay, we agreed that it truly was a Sound of Superlatives. As we would now be crossing from Jura to Islay I was particularly glad I had brought some Caol Ila 18y old malt for later that night. Jura malt on Jura then Islay malt on Islay, what could be better?