Waiting for the tide in the Sound of Islay #1 a tick feast!

The flood tide was now rushing north up the Sound of Islay at  5 knots. While there are some counter eddies, it is a purgatory thing to waste energy fighting the forces of nature. It is much better to go with the flow and where better to stop for third luncheon than this stunning beach on the Jura shore?

 Tony wasted no time in leaping to the top of the basalt dyke behind the beach. "You'll need to come up and see this view" he shouted down. Well my knees were still aching after the Tarbert portage the previous night so I took my time...

...and pitched my tent in the lee of another dyke. My tent was still soaking wet after my camp on Seil with Mike two nights previously.  The fresh offshore wind soon had it bone dry. While it was drying I slowly made my way up to Tony the easy way, round the back of the dyke.

As I climbed the view got better and better. This is looking north  to the distant mountains of Mull.

This is looking NW to Ruvaal lighthouse on Islay with Oronsay, Colonsay and Mull on the horizon.

This is looking west across the Sound of Islay to Sgarbh Breac 364m on Islay.

 This is looking SE down the narrowing Sound of Islay.

 These pretty yellow primroses caught my eye as I stopped to give my knees a rest.

 Tony was right the view from the top of the dyke was stunning.

 We had pulled the kayaks well above the incoming tide so we were in no hurry.

 Unlike these guys whom we had seen lifting their pots when we left the mouth of West Loch Tarbert.

The boat is Speedwell of Glenariffe CN318. Her home port is Kilkeel in SE Northern Ireland some 240 kilometres away! Whatever, she was on full throttle and only making slow progress down the Sound of Islay.

After all this activity and hubbub died down Tony and I were left in peace. We spent some time just watching the tide rush by and picking ticks off our wrists and ankles. This was our luncheon, not a tick feast!

A change of course in the Sound of Islay.

When Tony and I left West Loch Tarbert on Jura's wild west coast, our original intention had been to paddle the 8km across the Sound of Islay from Rubha a' Chrois-aoinidh on Jura and land to the west of Ruvaal lighthouse on Islay. There we could sit out the north going flood tide in the Sound of Islay before the tide turned and carried us south to our next destination on the SE coast of Islay. At first the sea was calm but...

Intermission with no photos.

...one thing about sea kayaking is that you need to be flexible. We had only gone 2km but the offshore tail wind which was funnelling straight down West Loch Tarbert had increased to the top of a F4 and we the Sound was kicking up some very lumpy water as the tide increased.

Anyway we decided to give Ruvall a miss and turned through 90 degrees to broad reach down the Sound as far as we could, given the tide was running against us.

 Out in the open Sound, we made splendid progress...

Intermission with no photos.

...for a further four kilometres but as we entered....

 ...the lee of Jura, the wind dropped and veered to the south so we had to drop our sails. The coastline here has frequent basalt dykes, arches caves and raised beaches.

It was getting hard paddling against the wind and the tide but we hugged the shore to keep out of the main stream as the Sound narrowed ahead.

This magnificent series of waterfalls cascade from a high valley directly onto the beach. The deep V shaped gorge was not cut by the present flow but by the huge volume of melt water from the retreating ice after the Ice Age.

 We made one last burst against the tide before finding...

 ...a most agreeable place to stop for...

 ...third luncheon. A basalt dyke behind the beach offered shade from the chill south east wind.

A big egg or a small frying pan?

Tony and I stopped for second luncheon at a little bay on Rubha a' Chrois-aoinidh at the mouth of West Loch Tarbert on Jura. What to eat?

 A big bird.

 An empty nest.

 Is this a big egg or a small frying pan?

As we ate we enjoyed a view over the mouth of the loch to another magnificent raised beach on the north side. After a scrumptious luncheon, the tide had turned and come back in to the boats. It was now time to leave West Loch Tarbert.

The beaches under the Enchanted Mountain of Jura.

From the raised beach on the south shore of West Loch Tarbert on Jura Tony and I set off on our exploration of the outer loch.

A fair wind and the last of the ebb tide helped to propel us...

...past an amazing series of bays backed by...

...raised beaches which were in turn backed by long dry sea cliffs and caves. The Paps of Jura now heaved above the coastal landscape and would be with us for most of the rest of our expedition.

As we approached Glenbatrick  bay the water quickly shoaled to a sandy bottom and turned from ultramarine to...

...dazzling turquoise. What looked like a road on the hillside was actually another raised beach.

We approached Glenbatrick house at the head of the bay. It is locally pronounced Glenabatrick after the original name Glenabedrig.

The house was built in Victorian times for the Astor family and it is the current Lord Astor's holiday home. David Cameron's wife Samantha is Lord Astor's step daughter and the Camerons have enjoyed several holidays here. Tony and I met Lord Astor in 2007 in a remote bay on the west coast of Jura. He seemed a thoroughly decent person. Behind the house the shapely mass of Beinn Shiantaidh (757m) heaved towards the blue vault of the sky. There are several translations of her Gaelic name but I much prefer "The Enchanted Mountain."

We left the turquoise waters of Glenbatrick Bay and paddled over the...

...the deeper ultramarine waters off Rubha a' Chrois-aoinidh (headland of the steep cross) at the entrance of West Loch Tarbert. Then we spotted a little sandy cove, time for second luncheon!

Are the raised beaches of West Loch Tarbert, Jura Slartibartfast's crowning achievement?

From Cairidh Mhor in Jura's West Loch Tarbert , Tony and I paddled west through the outer tidal rapids, the Cumain Mhor. A F4 easterly wind had got up (as forecast*) and together with the ebb tide accelerating through the narrows we went through at a fair lick. At the point the above photo was taken, I  had to suddenly divert to port as I was heading directly for a rock at 12km/hr. Just as the sail gybed over, the GoPro camera got knocked off by the rock but fortunately I always tie it on.

 We landed shortly afterwards at...

 ...what must be Slartibartfast's crowning achievement...

...it is one of Jura's most amazing raised beaches. Each year, for over 10,000 years, more and more of it is exposed as the land has slowly risen after the Ice Age ice sheet melted.

 Clean, sea worn pebbles and cobbles stretch upwards as far as the eye can see and at the summit...

This photo September 2009.

...the tide last went out 10,000 years ago. It has taken that long for these few patches of vegetation to establish.

It is at the summit of the beach that the largest cobbles are found. These have ancient colonies of lichens growing on them.

This photo September 2009.

The situation and scale of this beach makes it a unique feature of the British coastline.

The huge raised beach retains a fresh water loch, Lochan Maol an t-Sornaich, but despite the high rainfall in the area no visible river flows out of it.

Instead, innumerable springs like this one issue from its base and as the fresh water mingles with the salt water of West Loch Tarbert it creates swirling patterns of refracted light in the sea.

The ebb tide was still pouring out of the Cumain Mhor as we made our way back to the waiting  boats.

*The forecast wind was why we were here in the shelter of West Loch Tarbert. Our original plan for this time during the trip was to be crossing the west end of the Corryvreckan, to the north of Jura. This would have held less appeal given the force 4 gusting 6 easterly wind, see below...!

This is approaching the west end of the Gulf of Corryvreckan from the north in August 2008. Jura is straight ahead. It is the last hour of the west going flood tide (travelling at 8 knots left to right) and the F4 easterly wind is blowing with the tide. We are in the calm waters of an east going eddy (also 8 knots). It is quite a committing place!

A fish ladder in West Loch Tarbert, Jura.

West Loch Tarbert (on the maps it is just Loch Tarbert but everyone calls it WLT!) is full of interest and we set off the explore the middle loch which is bounded by the two tidal narrows. There were many places to stop...

...but we were particularly interested  in a little artificial loch at Cairidh Mhor. There are two dams with the newer one being higher.

The loch was created after the 1881 6" Ordnance Survey map was surveyed in 1878. It does not appear on OS maps until the 1953 1" map.

The fish ladder rises about 3 metres from the sea in...

...four steps. I expect it was built for sea trout. Fishing and deer stalking  provide a significant source of employment to the Jura population.

Tony was like a nimble mountain goat and hopped over the gaps to investigate...

...the majority of the outflow through the sluice rather than down the fish ladder.

Of course he was only pretending to adjust the sluice, it was seized solid!

As my knees were killing me after the previous evening's portage I was certainly not leaping about like a mountain goat so I stayed on the shore and admired these alpine plants growing in cracks in the wall.

There is a boathouse and slipway on the east shore.

Then it was back to the kayaks to continue our exploration of West Loch Tarbert, Jura.