End of the road: the Mull of Galloway tide race.

After we reloaded the kayaks onto the car, we drove to the road end at the Mull of Galloway, the southernmost tip of Scotland.


Looking east on the spring ebb tide you can see the main race comes very close to the east end of the Mull but it then heads SW, out to sea, leaving most of the cliffs below the Mull standing in a relatively flat eddy.


This is the spring ebb race running against a force 4 to 6 SW wind.


Looking south towards the Isle of Man over the ebb race.


Looking west, the ebb race is well offshore...but the water round Gallie Craig is not exactly flat.


To give an idea of the scale this is Gallie Craig from the sea looking east towards the lighthouse! (17/02/2008)


The above photos show the ebb race. The flood race come much closer to the cliffs than the ebb. We went through against the flood tide, 2 hours from slack water at springs. This photo (in a similar wind to that which we experienced) shows the water state below the fog horn, 2 hours from slack water at neaps. It gives an idea of what we met. We found more broken water and the conditions persisted without a break for 2km! To give some idea of scale, the photo was taken from a height of 71m. (28/12/06)


Going east to west, on the west going ebb you have only a short 100m or so of race to cross at the east end of the Mull. After this you enter a large relatively flat eddy which extends right to the west end of the Mull and beyond.

Going east to west on an east going flood as we did, even in close to the rocks, you are much closer to the main race. From the light house you have to fight adverse currents at each headland. The red arrow highlights a submarine reef which throws up standing waves especially on the flood.

What a fun place! No wonder several legends attach to this place.....

PS Of course most people would have driven up to the road end at the top of the cliffs and looked at the race before they paddled it. Many would have decided that one look was enough! The trick with this type of paddling is not to look first! We didn't, but of course I am not recommending this ostrich type of approach to planning sea kayaking expeditions! In truth I knew exactly what it would look like as I have gazed down on the race in many different conditions but not paddled it afterwards.

15/12/2008

Sea Kayakphoto.com trip index 2008

I have been posting little snippets of various trips concurrently. For those who would like to follow the thread of a single trip, I hope this index will be useful.

Less is more round Lismore!
27/12/08

What a carry on round the Mull!
15/12/08 The Mull of Galloway

Another West coast sunset! Firth of Clyde
14/12/08 Bute from Portencross,

Dunure from Maidens, Firth of Clyde
06/12/08

The Four Castles of Carrick, Firth of Clyde.
02/11/08 Turnberry to Ayr

The River Fleet from Fleet Bay
17/10/08

Loch nan Ceall and the Sound of Arisaig
13/09/08
14/09/08

To the Corryvreckan
30/08/08 Seil to Scarba via the Corryvreckan
31/08/08 Scarba to Seil via the Grey Dogs and the Cuan Sound

The Mull of Kintyre
26/07/08 Macrihanish to Sanda via the Mull
27/07/08 Sanda to Davaar Island

To Islay
12/07/08 Claggain Bay
13/07/08 Traigh Bhan
14/07/08 An Claddach
15/07/08 Port Askaig

To St Kilda
30/05/08 Loch Roag
31/05/08 Taransay
01/06/08 Monach Islands
02/06/08 Hirta and Dun
03/06/08 am Village Bay, Hirta
03/06/08 pm Boreray and the stacks
04/06/08 Loch Reasort to Scarp
05/06/08 Pabaigh Mor and Bhacsaigh

To the Garvellachs
10/05/08 Seil to the Grey Dogs via the Corryvreckan
11/05/08 Grey Dogs to the Garvellachs and Seil

Lady Isle
08/05/08 A busy night at Troon

Ailsa Craig
05/05/08 Gannets and granite

Fleet Bay
02/05/08 Solway sunshine

A misty Firth of Clyde
27/04/08 Maidens to Ayr

Arran
18/03/08 Portencross to Brodick via the Wee Cumbrae, Bute and Glen Sannox

Mull of Galloway
17/02/08 Ardwell Bay to East Tarbet

Dorus Mor
12/02/08 Craignish through the Dorus Mor to Crinan and Loch Craignish then back through the Dorus Mor as the sun set.

The four maritime castles of Carrick
20/01/08 Turnberry to Ayr.

The Cumbraes and Bute
12/01/2008 A day trip in the Clyde from Largs

The sun sets over Craignish; the cradle of the Scotland.

As we left the head of Loch Craignish, the road south climbed steeply up the Bealach Mor (the big pass). Before the road turned inland we enjoyed this amazing view over the loch to the ridges of Craignish and to the rocky outlines of Jura and Scarba beyond. The lights of Ardfern twinkled in the shelter of Eilean Mhic Chrion.

Craignish lies in the parish of Kilmartin which is the first village to the south of the Bealach Mor. This area of Scotland has been settled for over 4,000 years, since Neolithic times. In the vicinity of the village there are over 350 ancient sites within a radius of 10 kilometres. Not for nothing, is this area known as the Valley of Ghosts!

Much later, about 400AD, the Scots who lived round the coast of this part of Argyll, Kintyre, Islay and North Ireland, founded their kingdom of Dalriada here. Their capital was Dunadd fort which was built on a rocky outcrop. This rose from the Great Moss, the flat land behind present day Crinan. Gradually their influence extended throughout the rest of Scotland. The first King of all Scotland was Kenneth Macalpine, he was crowned at Dunadd in 843AD.

12/02/2008

Better Days

We came across this old fishing boat near the shore of Loch Craignish. The flaking paint of her planking glowed in the twilight and brought colour to the waters of the loch that once supported her. She is alone now and her days at sea are past but she is decaying with a dignity that befits a craft that in turn supported a way of life.

Boats like this can be found in quiet corners all round the West coast of Scotland. They are a dying breed; built of wood by local craftsmen (this one perhaps in the boatyard at nearby Crinan) they sometimes served several generations of one fishing family. I wonder if the men who fished from her are still working or have long since retired. They too are a dying breed.

We left her in the gathering darkness of Craignish.

12/02/2008

Sunset over the Enchanted Mountain.

From Craignish Point we looked southwest down the Sound of Jura and we watched the deepening twilight gather behind the rugged Isle of Jura. Long after the sun had set, the dreamy, dusky light on the distant Paps of Jura was worth the wait and the cold! It emphasised the mystical nature of these mountains; Beinn Shiantaidh (on the left) is Gaelic for Mountain of the Enchantment.

12/02/2008

Winter twighlight on Loch Beag

Loch Beag is an inlet off the Sound of Jura. At its head, surrounded by woodland, is Craignish Castle. The Castle dates from the 16th century and the original square keep has walls 7.5 feet thick. A dungeon has been cut into the rock below its foundations. Nowadays it has been converted into private apartments and it is not possible to visit it.

Loch Beag is still a secondary tidal port, perhaps reflecting its previous importance as the Craignish ferry terminal.

12/02/2008

The ferryman of Craignish

In this house lived the ferryman of Craignish.

According to the 1881 British Census, his name was Dugald Mc Farlan. He was aged 60 and lived in the house with his wife Anne aged 36 and their children Dugald 12, scholar, John 8, scholar, Margaret 6, scholar and Malcolm 4. Dugald's sister Anne 52, Handicap: Lunatic and John Mc Vicar 19, assistant ferryman also lived in this little house.

The house was not shown on the Ordnance Survey map of 1875 so it must have been built between then and 1881. Despite the overcrowding by modern standards, they probably had one of the best houses on the peninsula.

12/02/2008

The sun goes down on the last ferry to Jura.

As the sun set on our Dorus Mor adventure, we returned to our launch spot, the old Craignish Pier.


There had been a ferry running between Craignish and Kenuachdrach (now Kinuachdrachd) on Jura since the 17th century. According to the statistical account of Scotland of 1843, 3,000 sheep and 1,000 black cattle were shipped through here each year.

The present pier is not shown on the 1875 Ordnance Survey map butthe 1881 British Census records the ferryman's cottage as being occupied. The 1900 Ordnance Survey map does show the pier as a T shaped structure. Presumably the top of the T was made from wood, as no trace of it remains today.


You still can walk to the end of the pier to watch the sun go down over the Sound of Jura and the Gulf of Corryvreckan but you will wait a long time for a ferry. The last ferry left in the 1930's.

Nowadays Jura has no direct ferry link with the mainland. You need to take a ferry to Islay, get off then take a smaller ferry from Islay to Jura. Jura is a remote and wonderful place, you would be quicker going by sea kayak!

12/02/2008

Added 08/03/2008

PeterD said...
that pier looks very tall - how did you land here? Is there a beach nearby you could land at?

Peter there is a small beach about 500m further back on the single track road that ends at the jetty. Unfortunately there is no car park there. In dry weather it might be possible to park on the verge but it was too boggy when we were there. We carried the kayaks down the steep slippery rocks to the right of the pier.

Eddy lines, boils and whirlpools in the Dorus Mor

16:08:18


16:08:20 Something seems to be stirring ahead...


16:08:22 ...thankfully it's only a tiddler!


These photos were taken within the Dorus Mor before we cleared Craignish Point. We were travelling at 12km/hour which equates at 6 knots neaps as marked on the chart. I found myself progressing along an eddy line between a large, upwelling smooth boil on my right and a more disturbed area on the left. As you can see from the small blue segment on the GPS track, this corresponded with a sudden (involuntary) change in direction.

All of a sudden a small whirlpool appeared at the interface and within 2 seconds sucked air down to at least 6 feet below the surface of the crystal clear water. I dropped the camera and snatched my paddle out of the water to perform a reassuring air brace (as one does). Over the next minute I saw another five, near identical, whirlpools along the eddyline. Many years ago from a yacht, I saw about ten similar little whirlpools along another eddy line which forms nearer the Craignish peninsula.

If there had been any wind I would not have seen them, the Dorus would have been a very lively place and I would not have been doing any air bracing!

Our maximum speed was well thorough the Dorus Mor when we reached 16 to 19 km/hr where our track went northwards near where the chart mentions tide rips. We did need to paddle quite hard to break out of the race, otherwise we might have ended up heading for the Corryvreckan. We started paddling north just after we met the whirlpools. You can get some idea of the flow by the large arc of our track.

12/02/2008

Sea river

From Macaskin we paddled SW towards the islands that stream south from Garbh Reisa, the gatekeeper of the Dorus Mor.


Dorus Mor means great door or gate in Gaelic.


We were soon approaching the steep cliffs of Garbh Reisa.


We kept paddling SW until we cleared low Craignish Point. We turned to the NW when we could see straight through the Dorus Mor, past Reisa an t-Sruith, and on through the distant Gulf of Corryvreckan bounded by Jura on the left and Scarba on the right. We were now on the equivalent of a great river in the sea. If we were not able to break out of its tidal stream, we would be carried on through the Gulf of Corryvreckan and into its Great Race beyond....

12/02/2008

The leaving of Macaskin

We continued round the north end of Island Macaskin and passed through the narrow channel between it and Eilean nan Gabhar. We emerged into the sunlight which was streaming up Loch Craignish. The Dorus Mor was our destination. It lay on the horizon between the rugged outline of Garbh Reisa and the low Point of Craignish. Through it, the flood tide was now streaming towards the distant hills of Jura and the great Gulf of Corryvreckan to their north.

12/02/2008

The Kilns of Macaskin

We returned to our kayaks from the abandoned settlement on Isle Macaskin. We had left them on the little landing channel that had been laboriously cleared of boulders by the former inhabitants.


We paddled up the SE coast of Macaskin and passed these ancient kilns. I have seen similar kilns on the Isle of Lismore (some 48km to the NNE), which date from the 1800s. The Lismore kilns were lime kilns and as Macaskin is relatively fertile, compared with other islands on acidic rocks, it is possible these are also lime kilns. They could however, be corn kilns.

12/02/2008

White tailed sea eagles of the Dorus Mor.

While we were exploring the islands of the Dorus Mor we saw these two magnificent white tailed sea eagles. The strong currents and disturbed waters of the race bring fish to the surface and the sea eagles are ready to swoop down and catch them with their talons.

In the summer you can also find gannets feeding here but they can dive more deeply and catch the fish with their bills.

12/02/2008

The stout trees and roots of Isle Macaskin.

We paddled up the rugged east shore of ~Loch Craignish then crossed to Island Macaskin.


From its shore we walked over the bracken (which has covered once fertile ground) to the abandoned settlement. Inside one of the cottages, two barn owls were roosting. The settlement had 6 people living in it on the 1881 census but it was abandoned by the 1891 census. One of the last people to be born on the island was Ann Gillies in about 1860. She married Neil MacEwan and lived nearby at Kilmartin on the mainland.


This is the view from one of the cottages. The people who lived here enjoyed this fine view and took the trouble to plant these stout trees. These islands are the roots of the Scottish nation.

12/02/2008

From Nick in Chichester:
That landscape shot looks almost photoshop'd...like a fantasy landscape! lovely.

From Savage Family:
Your pictures are always of very high quality, but I am particularly struck by the two today that are taken apparently into the sun, but in which detail is preserved, rather than shaded. I was wondering what sort of settings and exposures you have used to obtain such pictures? I don't mind, of course, if you prefer not to reveal your methods, but I think you have achieved good results there.

Hello Nick and Savage Family, I am glad you liked those photos, thank you!

Most cameras give a silhouette when taking into the light shots or in other high contrast photos. This is so common that it looks "normal" and high dynamic range photos such as the two you refer to look unnatural, (yet they are much more akin to what your eyes see at the time).

The web is full of how to take HDR photos, which are normally composites of several photos, taken with different exposures and blended in Photoshop. I often use that technique but it is not possible to do it easily where the light bits are so intertwined with the dark bits as in the tree shot.The tree shot was taken with a wide angle lens, 21mm, to make the sun a relatively small source of light. I used an expensive lens (Canon L series lens) to minimise flare and maximise contrast.Expensive lenses also tend to distort the horizon less when it does not run through the centre of the photo.

It is easier to reclaim detail from underexposed parts of a photo than from highlights, which once burned out are lost for ever. So in this case, I exposed for the sky rather than the foreground. The exposure was 1/800th at f20 at 400ASA .I used the camera RAW setting to save the digital photo. This results a much larger file than the usual jpeg but it stores a lot more detail, particularly in the shadow areas. On the computer, I used the Camera Raw software to open the file and used its exposure and fill light controls to bring out the shadow detail on the trees and bracken. It was pretty easy!

From Loch Crinan to Loch Craignish

From the Crinan Canal we left the pub behind and paddled north across Loch Crinan to the sandy beach below Duntrune Castle.


This was a wonderful place to stop for a leisurely lunch.


From the mouth of Loch Craignish, looking out through the Dorus Mor to the Gulf of Corryvreckan.

After lunch we wanted to make sure the tide had built up to maximum flow in the Dorus Mor, so we took a little detour into Loch Craignish to give it some more time.

12/02/2008

Crinan, the gateway from the Clyde to the west coast.

Continuing our recent paddle in the waters of the Dorus Mor, we approached sheltered Loch Crinan. In the summer this bay will be full of moored yachts. Most of them will of course remain on the mooring for the summer with perhaps a weekend trip motoring up nearby Loch Craignish to Ardfern.


The village of Crinan stands on the rim of a steep promontory in the loch. It is sheltered by the wooded isle of Eilean da Mheinn. In the 1580/90s, Timothy Pont mapped this part of Scotland. He annotated the map thus "heir is a herbory for a ship at ylen Damein & also wthin the throat of the river".


The sea lock of the Crinan Canal.

Since his time, the Crinan Canal was built between 1794 and 1816 by John Rennie and Thomas Telford. It is 9 miles long, has 15 locks and rises to a height of 65 feet. It connects Ardrishaig on the Clyde with Crinan on the Sound of Jura. This saves the long and dangerous 128 mile long voyage round the Mull of Kintyre.

There is a fine hotel here with a very good public bar but for once we decided to make best use of the unseasonal sunshine and paddled on! We must return on a rainy day!

12/02/2008

A sailor's grave high above the Sound of Jura.

Leaving the islands of the Dorus Mor, we allowed the tides to carry us down and across the Sound of Jura. The lonely lighthouse of Ruadh Sgeir broke the southern horizon.


We were bound for the wooded coast of Knapdale but a high pressure haze hid the coastal features.


We passed below Ardnoe Point. A sailor's grave lies in the woods high above the point, overlooking the constantly moving tides. His name was John Black and he died from cholera on his schooner in 1832. My grandfather's name was John Black. The family were fishermen and sailors and came from this part of Argyll. I wonder if I am related to this sailor?


After paying our respects, Duntrune Castle announced our arrival at Loch Crinan.

12/02/2008

The lost chapel of the islands at the edge of the Dorus Mor.

A lonely islet to the SW of Eilean na Cille.

On passing through the Dorus Mor (Great Door) tide race we paddled down the SE side of Garbh Reisa (the rough one in the tide race) and slipped NW against the tide, which was pouring through the gap between it and Eilean na Cille (Chapel Island).


We landed on a reef to the NW of Eilean na Cille and enjoyed first luncheon in the splendid isolation of these rocky isles that are cut off from the world by the powerful tides of the Sound of Jura. Of the eponymous chapel, there was now not a trace. Even its heyday, I doubt if it would have been "standing room only" for Sunday worship.


As the ebb streamed away to the south, the weak winter sun reached its zenith but after months of rain, at least we could see it!

We left these islands on the last of the ebb. Their past is now remembered only in a name.

12/02/2008

The hand-less piper of Duntrune Castle.

Loch Crinan is guarded on its north shore by the austere greyness of the tower of Duntrune Castle. It dates from the 12th century and was a Campbell stronghold for many centuries but has been owned by the Malcolm family since 1792. It is reputed to be one of the oldest continuously inhabited buildings in Scotland and as such it is unfortunately not open to the public.

It is haunted by the ghost of a hand-less piper. He was a MacDonald who was captured in the early 1600’s. His life was spared, as he was known as a fine piper, but he was imprisoned with his pipes in a small room at the top of the tower. One day, from his high vantage point he saw his chief's (Coll MacDonald) galley approaching a Campbell ambush. He played a lament "Cholla mo Run, Seachain a Dun" or “My beloved Coll, avoid the castle”. The Campbells were so incensed by his warning that they cut his hands off so he would never play again.

Of course, there are often two sides to stories involving the MacDonalds and the Campbells. Coll had sent the piper as a spy into the Campbell Castle.

12/02/2008

Set the controls for the heart of the sun.

We launched from the old jetty on the NW side of the Craignish peninsula. The sun was just rising above the hills. We paddled north round Eilean Ona then ferried across the south going tide to Reisa Mhic Phadean.


Paddling down the Sound of Jura with the Craignish peninsula leading down to the Dorus Mor tide race between it and the island of Garbh Reisa.


Looking west through the Corryvreckan.


Entering the Dorus Mor.

12/02/2008