Canny mariners ken ye cannae whack Canna harbour at sunset!

We set off from Rum to Canna at 16:37, exactly 1 hour before sunset and 3 hours and 39 minutes into the north going tide (which was 2 days before springs). I have used Canna harbour quite a few times on yachting and sea kayaking trips, so I was confident it would provide a safe haven (and camp site) for the night. We set off knowing that the maximum spring rate in the middle of the Sound of Canna is 1.5 knots but near the east coast of Sanday it is 4 to 5 knots.

I had set a GPS way point on the east end of Sanday and using a combination of maintaining the bearing from our current position to the way point, transits and seat of the pants, I think we did a damn fine job of the crossing.

 Slowly the sunlit mountains of Rum...

 ... receded behind us and we found ourselves...

 ...in the shade below Sanday lightouse. Although situated on Sanday, this is officially known as Canna lighthouse to differentiate it from the light on the isle of |Sanday in the Orkeney Islands. It was built in 1907 and flashes white every 10 seconds.

We took a breather once we were out of the main tidal flow but even here a buoy was being tugged under the surface!

There is absolutely nothing to beat the feeling of paddling into the sheltered waters of Canna at sunset. There is no better harbour in hundreds of square miles of the exposed waters of the Sea of the Hebrides. Mariners have sought safe haven here for thousands of years and we were delighted to do the same.

 The sun was setting behind the dramatic outline of...

 ..the former Roman Catholic St Edward's Chapel on Sanday. It was renovated in 2001 to be used as a Gaelic study centre but for various reasons has yet to open its doors.

 On the north side of the harbour the sun was shining on the Church of Scotland church.

As it was approaching high water we paddled deep into that part of Canna which...

 ...dries out at low tide. The sun was setting as we paddled...

 ...under the bridge that connects Sanday to Canna and made our way out into...

 ...the open sea of the Hebrides beyond.

The sun had set by the time we had hauled our kayaks out onto one of the white sand coves that can be found on this coast.

A whiff of diesel with Rum on the rocks near Bloodstone..

As we left Kilmory Bay several fast fighter aircraft arced round the sky, disappearing round either side of the distant Skye Cuillin. Then this air support aircraft, G-FRAS, a Dassault Falcon-20C, leased from Cobham flew low overhead.

We continued round the coast of Rum but although there was almost no wind the swell was heaving at the base of the cliffs with a near constant roar. We were now paddling SW into the glare of the low sun. Something in the distance caught our eye but we could not quite make out what it was...

 ...until we approached 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.

Initial attempts to salvage her failed when her engine room and fish holds were holed and flooded. Her fuel oil was removed but there was still a whiff of diesel in the air over two years later. The Marine Accident Investigation Branch report makes interesting reading and like many accidents it was caused by a chain of small events that led to the final grounding.

 This coastline became more and more dramatic until we turned a corner and...

 ...Bloodstone Hill reared up above our intended destination of...

 ...Glen Guirdil. Green agates are found in this rock. They contain little tiny red flecks of iron, and it is these that give the stone and the mountain its name.

The geology here is very complex, Bloodstone Hill lies at the boundary of granite and Torridonian sandstone. It is also covered with sedimentary conglomerate rocks containing igneous rocks from the eruption which formed the Cuillin of Rum. These sedimentary rocks are then covered with lava flows that are younger than the Rum eruption and which probably came from the later Mull eruption to the south. If you look carefully at the top slopes of Bloodstone Hill, you can see where these lavas have flowed over the top of the hill and started to run down ancient river valleys. The lava solidified before it got to the sea and has left steep escarpments.

Bloodstone is one of the finest rocks for making stone tools. Our ancestors have been visiting Rum to quarry bloodstone for at least 7,500 years; a camp with a heap of hazel nut shells has been carbon dated to that time. Bloodstone arrow heads and axe heads have been found at great distances from the lonely isle of Rum. These people worked and traded bloodstone 3,000 years before the first stone was laid in an Egyptian pyramid.

June 2006

I have twice before landed by sea kayak at Guirdil. Both occasions were in summer but one was very windy. We landed near high tide on banks of uprooted kelp.

June 2006

This is Guirdil bothy where Ian and I planned to stay for two nights. 

June 2006

The following day we hoped to circumnavigate Canna from here and return for the second night.

As we approached Guirdil we could see an inviting plume of smoke coming from the bothy chimney. This time it was about half tide and the swell was washing up over a boulder beach interspersed by studs of bed rock. We explored both sides of the beach but it did not look very inviting. We were concerned as the forecast was for the wind and surf height to increase the following day. Then two tall men emerged from the bothy. Both were dressed head to toe in camouflage gear... time for Plan B.

In life you need to create opportunities in which good luck might happen. Both Ian and I have a very flexible view to planning. We had allowed sufficient time to arrive at Guirdil and paddle somewhere else, we had brought tents and I knew of a good camp site on Canna, which we could reach by night fall...

Time for tea with the Old Man of Rum and a fine pair.

Under a saltire sky we approached the cliff at northern boundary of the beach at Samhnan Insir. It is formed of pre-tertiary Torridonian sandstone and has weathered into...

...the remarkable features of a face, known as the Old Man of Rum.

The northernmost point of Rum consists of shallow sandstone ledges which project far out from the land. The swell provided some entertainment as we were distracted by our first sight of distant Canna. This was to be our destination the following day...or so we thought.

Approaching Kilmory we came to this amazing sandstone boulder, which had weathered into a...

...fantastic T shape. We pondered upon the cataclysmic forces that must have wrenched this great stone from the very bosom of the Earth.

As we approached Kilmory Bay we came across...

...more hungry red deer feeding on the kelp exposed by low tide.

Again we waited patiently outside the surf zone, admiring the heaving and fine pair of summits, Hallival 723m and Askival 812m, until...

...some smaller sets saw us...

...safely in to shore.

It was now time for tea and some 10 year old Jura on this stunning beach. Meanwhile the deer returned to their grazing at the far end of the bay.

Only Bird Friday for company on the north coast of Rum.

Ian and I were enjoying glorious February sunshine on the north coast of Rum when we spotted a most satisfactory location to stop...

...for a third luncheon. We sat and waited for the bigger sets to go through before making our final run into the beach at Samhnan Insir.

We must have arrived just as some bigger sets had arrived. For a long time after we arrived, there was barely a ripple as we admired the fine view north to the Skye Cuillin.

 The pristine sands were patterned by bands of red and silver grains but...

 ...we were not the first visitor although...

 ...we had no human company.

We enjoyed our luncheon on warm rocks with a lovely view to Skye.

A Rum do of geos, boulders and apparently yummy kelp.

 By the time Ian and I got on the water at the Loch Scresort pier on Rum it...

 ...was nearly 12:30. At first we could only see the distant mainland beyond the mouth of the loch but...

 ...soon we could see the distinctive outline of Eigg. However, we were going to leave Eigg for another day and as we...

 ...left the enclosure of Loch Scresort, we turned left to paddle round the north coast of Rum. The Cuillin of Skye dominated the northern horizon.

 The coast consists of low cliffs and the sea is either blue if paddling over kelp and rock or...

 ...turquoise if paddling over sand.

 We took our first break on the delightful sands of Camas Pliasaig as...

 ...the MV Loch Nevis was returning from Canna.

 As we paddled on everything grew larger like this enormous geo and...

 ...this huge boulder beach that had been modelled into a series of terraces and mounds by winter storms.

As we rounded the entrance to this bay we startled a red deer hind and her calf from last year. They had been feeding on kelp at low water and bounded away in a shower of spray as their ears swivelled round to focus on the noise of our paddles. Coastal populations of red deer and reindeer feed on kelp when there is insufficient grazing on land.  Ian and I don't like startling wildlife, particularly in winter, but we were certainly not expecting to see deer feeding up to their knees in sea water! The real issue is not Ian and I startling two deer but why is the population of deer on Rum apparently starving and eating kelp. Maybe they like the stuff (though I have not seen deer eating kelp in summer) or maybe there are too many deer on Rum?