Going with the flow on the Rhins of Galloway

After settling David's new pheasant friend we at last got onto the water beneath the old lighthouse at Portpatrick. In the distance we could just see Northern Ireland on the far side of the North Channel.


The tides run strongly in the North Channel and our plan was to take the flood tide SE to the Mull of Logan then take the ebb tide back to Portpatrick.


We soon cleared the crumbling walls...


...of Portpatrick's old outer breakwater. Portpatrick lighthouse was built in 1839 but was decommissioned in 1900.


Even Phil forgot about the pheasant fouling his car, the tide soon caught us and before we knew it...


...we were in the shade of the dark cliffs of Castle Point.


We stopped for a moment in the little bay behind the point to admire the remains of Dunskey Castle.

Potted pheasant at Portpatrick

Back in February we drove through snow showers to arrive in Portpatrick which nestles round a rocky inlet on the Rhins of Galloway. It is an interesting little place...


...which is just as well because Tony and I had to spend some considerable time waiting for David and Phil to arrive. We spent the time looking at the large pots and transport of the Lighthouse Pottery. We were fearing they had run off the road in the snow when, at last, a call came through. David had rescued a pheasant that had been injured on the road. The plan was that he would leave it in Phil's car while we went paddling then take it home to his surgery afterwards. The poor thing would need some sustenance so David and Phil were searching Portpatrick for supplies of pheasant food.


Fortunately Portpatrick is a small place and their search was not protracted. The only thing resembling pheasant food was a packet of scotch broth mix found in a small supermarket. This was duly purchased and left with the pheasant on the floor of Phil's car. Phil was looking pretty dubious about this but David reassured him that it would be OK. The pheasant obviously liked the mix as it proceeded to stuff itself with the contents of the packet.


At last the kayaks were carried down the slip...


and onto the sands of Portpatrick harbour. Colourful buildings cluster round the esplanade and amongst them we spotted the Crown Hotel . We made a mental note to call there later.


As we prepared to depart, Tony and I sympathised with a still anxious Phil. Much as we felt sorry for the pheasant, we thought a better use of the scotch broth mix would have been to make a lovely big pot of soup.... with a nice pheasant stock!

Sea Kayaking round Laggan peninsula Mull via Lochs Spelve and Buie

A 44km paddle from Ellenabeich on the Island of Seil across the Firth of Lorn and round the Laggan peninsula of Mull via Loch Spelve, freshwater Loch Uisg and Loch Buie, February 2010. This route takes you through part of Scotland's Great Glen Fault, which just clips SE Mull. It involves two portages and two open crossings. Although this was a day trip, it would make a fantastic multi day expedition. From Glasgow it takes about 2hrs 45minutes to drive to Ellenabeich.

Tidal streams in the Firth of Lorn south of the entrance to Loch Spelve run at 2 knots springs
NE going +0515 HW Oban -0015 HW Dover
SW going -0105 HW Oban +0555 HW Dover

Tidal streams at Loch Spelve entrance run at 3.5-4 knots springs
Ingoing -0530 HW Oban +0125 HW Dover
Outgoing +0015 HW Oban -0515 HW Dover
Strong eddies and overfalls

Tidal streams off Frank Lockwood's Island run at 1 knot springs
NE going +0430 HW Oban -0100 HW Dover
SW going -0115 HW Oban +0500 HW Dover
W going eddy to Loch Buie during NE stream


Loch Spelve


Loch Buie

Google maps, short by an Insh!

Dark volcanic sands of Mull.

A Lorn view at luncheon

The Loch Spelve welcoming committee.

Loch Spelve and its mysterious pier.

A sea kayaking milestone on Mull.

Sea kayakers get fresh on Loch Uisg, Mull

Lochbuie, his highlanders and an admirable port.

The road to Loch Buie.

Sea kayaking at sundown in Loch Buie.

A night crossing of the Firth of Lorn by kayak.


Photo album map.

A night crossing of the Firth of Lorn by kayak.

As we left Loch Buie and entered the Firth of Lorn we encountered a large swell rolling in from the Atlantic. In the distance we could see the rounded outline of Scarba on the far side of the Firth.


Once round the point, the swell subsided and we passed close under the mighty cliffs of An Garradh. Mull has a reputation among climbers for rotten basalt rock but these cliffs looked superb. I wonder if any climbers have been here? The cliffs were lit by a lovely warm light except for the tops which were in the shade of some low cloud on the western horizon.


The sun set at 1715 and a cool NE wind began to get up.


In the fading light, we continued along the base of the cliffs and paddled inside of Frank Lockwood's island. This is no more than a flat skerry. Lockwood, 1846-1897, was Solicitor General of Scotland. He and the 21st MacLaine of Lochbuie were married to sisters and the two men became good friends. I suspect the island was named as a joke, Frank certainly would not have made much of a living from it.


At 1735 the light was fading fast and we had started on the final 16km open crossing to Seil. The waves began to build as we became more exposed.


We hit a F3-4 45 degree headwind and an adverse 1 knot tide. Most of the crossing was by starlight and we could only feel and taste the waves. We eventually landed at 1940 (nearly two and a half hours after sunset) after covering a total distance of 44km.


The GPS track shows where we took two brief breaks and were carried down wind and tide. After the second break we stopped maintaining a ferry angle to keep on the GPS bearing to Seil. We could see the lights of Easdale and just paddled straight for the them. You can see how the 1 knot tide and wind then carried us off course.

The backup plan, if weather turned before we left Loch Buie, was a rather decent B&B on Mull.

We do most of our paddling in winter on day trips so we are quite used to coming home in the dark. We are fair weather paddlers and so carefully watch the weather forecasts beforehand. I checked tide times and flows and marked up our maps with the details, I also checked the times the Colonsay ferry would cross our route and made sure we were not there!

For the crossing we had 5 head torches for the three of us and spare batteries, VHF radios and listened on 16 for the MSI weather broadcasts, EPIRB, rocket flares, daynight hand flares, laminated maps, compasses and mapping GPS. For most of the crossing we paddled three abreast for ease of maintaining contact.

We all had dry suits, goretex fleece lined mountain caps and pogies and carried spare neoprene gloves and balaclavas. Under the dry suit I wore Fourth Element Arctic gear which is a thick double fleece.

In case there was a problem after we left Loch Buie, we also carried spare Buffalo jackets and trousers and a 4 man bothy bag and foam mats to sit on. Spare food, water, stove, lighter, dry kindling, first aid kit and boat repair kit. If the wind did get up (we also had an ebb tide to contend with) and we could not get uptide and upwind to Seil, we could have made a run for the east coast of the Garvellachs and bivvied there or, if it was open, used the bothy on Garbh Eileach.

If the weather got right out of hand, we had short tow ropes with which we could have maintained a raft and run before it, towing a drogue. If real s**t had happened I could have let the EPIRB off but it would have had to be pretty bad to do that, after all I didn't let it off when I dislocated my knee on Gunna!

Sea kayaking at sundown in Loch Buie.

Despite Jennifer and Jim having done most of the heavy work, the portage had taken much longer than I had expected because of the pain in my knee. The shadows on the sand were long by the time we started to move the kayaks to the water's edge of Loch Buie.


The low sun gave a lovely warm light to the low hills behind the beach. The dark green bushes are gorse. In the spring they will be covered in the yellow flowers that give the loch its name, Loch Buie; the yellow loch.


At last we were ready to go and the trolley's were disassembled and stowed in our rear hatches.


It was a wonderful feeling to be afloat again but we were now faced with a 23km crossing of the mouth of the Firth of Lorn back to Seil. There would be no places to land and most of the crossing would be in the pitch darkness of a moonless Scottish winter's night. What an adventure!


We took a final look back at Loch Buie. We could now see Lochbuie House beside Moy castle at the head of the loch.


On the horizon ahead, low lying Colonsay contrasted with the bold outline of Malcolm's Point on the Ross of Mull.


As we emerged from the confines of Loch Buie we rounded the low wave cut platform of Rubha na Faoilinn and the horizon opened up. On our left, the bold outline of the Paps of Jura heaved high above the lower hills of Islay on the right.

The road to Loch Buie.

At first it seemed a real drag (literally) to have to portage the kayaks round a rocky headland to reach the sands of Loch Buie. I had to tackle each slight slope backwards because of my knee injury.


Then we caught sight of the sea.


The perfect peace of the scene was broken only by the white foam of the waves which were breaking along the long crescent of sand on Traigh Bhan Lagain.


We stood for some time under the slopes of Beinn nam Gobhar (435m). We were just enjoying...


...the beauty and tranquility of the scene.


Without doubt, this was the finest approach to a sea kayaking launch spot that we had ever made.

Lochbuie, his highlanders and an admirable port.

Emerging from Loch Uisg, we found ourselves on the Lochbuie road once more. This obelisk was:

Erected by Lochbuie and his highlanders to commemorate HM Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee 22nd June 1897 "God Save the Queen".

Lochbuie was the chief of the clan Maclaine which owned these lands from the 14th century until 1922 when it was sold to Sir Richard Garton who had brewing interests in London. The estate is still owned by his descendants, the Corbett family.


It was somewhat disheartening to discover we still had a mile to go. These must be long Scot's miles. We decided to take a short cut to the sea through the grounds of Lochbuie estate. The estate road had suffered from the severe winter weather and was full of pot holes. We just turned a corner and met a distinguished looking gentleman in tweed. He was shovelling bottoming into the potholes. It turned out to be Jim Corbett, the owner of Lochbuie. We complimented him on the beauty of the estate and he said he was very lucky to live in Lochbuie.


We continued down to the sea near Moy Castle. The castle was built in the 15th century by Hector MacLean. It is currently being restored. In 1752 the Maclaines moved out of the castle and into the much more comfortable Lochbuie House which is now the stable block for the estate. In 1773 Dr Johnson and Mr Boswell were entertained by the 17th laird of Loch Buie while on their tour of the Hebrides. Boswell wrote in his diary:

“We had heard a great deal of Lochbuie being a great roaring braggadocio both in size and manners. The truth is that Lochbuie proved to be a bluff, comely, noisy old gentleman, proud of his hereditary consequence, and a very hearty and hospitable landlord”.

Boswell also recorded that Lochbuie was a “delightful host” and kept “an admirable port” of which, he drank a whole bottle. The staff at seakayakphoto.com are delighted to follow the example of the great diarist on our little tours!

The current Lochbuie House was completed in 1790.


We now emerged at the head of Loch Buie. The loch looked glorious with its surface burnished by the late afternoon sun and its entrance framing the distant island of Colonsay on the horizon. It was obvious I was not going to make it over the boulders to the water with my injured knee, so we turned left and continued south on the estate road...

Sea kayakers get fresh on Loch Uisg, Mull

After a long, hot portage, the kayaks found themselves in the cool fresh waters of Loch Uisge. In the distance, Craig Ben Lodge nestled in the woodland between mountain and loch.


A little road ran past the church and alongside the shore at the east end of the loch.


A golden eagle soared over the steep slopes above.


An approaching horizon line signified the end of the loch. Our destination, Loch Buie lay hidden, 16m below us, in the gap before Beinn na Croise, 503m.


All too soon, our delightful sojourn on Loch Uisg came to an end...


...and our next portage began.

A sea kayaking milestone on Mull.

At the head of Loch Spelve, Jennifer and Jim lugged the kayaks up to the road while I assembled the trolleys for our coming portage.


We were on the side road that runs round the south shore of Loch Spelve to the hamlet of Croggan past the even smaller hamlet of Barachandroman. This is of note as it is probably the longest single word place name in Scotland. It also has a good B&B which we would have used if we had got stuck on Mull. Leaving Barachandroman we soon came to a T junction.


We turned west on the main road from Craignure to Lochbuie. I was finding it hard going and the mile post proved to be a good excuse to stop for a break. I wondered how many sea kayaks or sea canoes had stopped here before. The current boom in sea kayaking has developed since the 1970's but before this, there was a long established activity of sea canoeing (often involving sails and portages) which had started towards the end of the 19th century. We were probably not the first!


The mile post was of cast iron and dated 1897, the year of Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee. It was manufactured by They were made by Smith, Patterson and Co of the Pioneer Foundry, Blaydon-on-Tyne, the firm existed from 1870 until 1954. I have seen more of their cast iron mile posts on the track between Drimnin and Doirlinn on the southern shore of Loch Sunart.


We came to Kinlochspelve parish church. It was built to a design by Thomas Telford in 1828. Beyond a glitter of water through the rhododendrons brought a sense of relief. The sea was still two miles away at Lochbuie and my knee was aching. What we had spotted was Loch Uisg, a freshwater loch 1.7 miles long....