A close encounter of the cetecean kind.

Rob said "you haven't lived until the 6 foot dorsal of a big bull knifes it's way toward you and disappears under your keel, the golden glow of a big yellow eye still visible." Rob I would be scared out of my wits! However, in a small way I have known something akin to your amazing experience.



Almost exactly 3 years ago we were paddling round the islands of Luing and Shuna in the Firth of Lorne. As we crossed the Sound of Shuna the wind dropped to nothing, then behind us came a thrashing noise like the paddle steamer Waverley. It was a group of about 30 to 45 bottlenose dolphins. They seemed to be feeding right on the surface as they came round Rubh Aird Luing. We stopped paddling and drifted in the tide. We were lying about 200 metres off their track but as soon as they saw us, all three pods came over for a closer look.



We were surrounded. The females and calves circled round on the outside, then the adolescents, then two large alpha males ignored my daughter Jennifer and came for me at high speed on the surface. Mature males weigh about 650kg and can travel at up to 30km/hr! They barrel rolled just under my kayak and one after the other, I saw the eye looking up at me then the pale belly and finally the tail. The second just flicked the bottom of the kayak ever so gently with its tail. The pair then exploded from the water before crashing back with a huge splash. They repeated this several times. Awesome. I have since seen the big one with the lateral bend to its dorsal fin 65 km to the south near Cara.



Only after what seemed like an age did the dolphins stop showing off and resume their fishing trip. Stunned, we were left on our own in the silence of a winter sunset in the Sound of Shuna.

The sad disappearance of Sammy seal.

Tonight on BBC Radio Scotland Rab Harrower, a safety inspector on the Forth Rail Bridge, reported that Sammy the seal (who frequented the rocks below the bridge and was a favorite with bridge men) has not been seen for eight days.


Large populations of grey seals breed on the shores of the Firth of Forth.


Looking SW up the Firth of Forth to the Rail Bridge.


Forth orca, photo by Rab Harrower

Rab expressed concern in case the arrival of a pod of 8 to 10 orcas in the upper Firth of Forth was, in some small way, connected with Sammy's absence. Rab managed to photograph one of the cetaceans from a boat. Others have seen the orcas gorging on young grey seal pups. These were born at the end of last year and are now learning to fend for themselves (somewhat unsuccessfully in some cases). Orcas have been seen in the Outer Forth at the Isle of May but never before so far up the Firth as the bridges.


The Isle of May on the horizon, from St Monans, Fife

It is possible that it is the same pod of orcas that were last year spotted devouring a flock of eider duck in Scotland's Northern Isles. In fact, orcas eat near anything that swims. Notwithstanding that recent orca video on Wendy's blog, orcas have not been reported as consuming many sea kayakers. However, the recent trend to black boats and black sea kayaking garb (courtesy of Reed) has me worried. Frankly, orcas scare the Willys out of me.



In my desire to appear as unseal-like as possible, I will stick to my all white boat, complete with Haida (Canadian native art) orca bow talismans and lucky orca vertebra mounted in the vertebra holder that P&H thoughtfully mould into their fore decks. I trust these will ward of the hungry orca: Lord of the Undersea World, Chief of the Ocean People. The Ocean People live in towns deep under the sea, they capsize the canoes of sea travellers and drag both canoes and occupants into the depths.

Poor Sammy. Please post any sightings of Sammy here and I will forward them to Rab and his team.

As a PS, the Firth of Forth is a great sea kayaking destination. On the Fife shore there are attractive harbour villages such as Crail and on the south shore there are dramatic coastal features leading to Bass Rock and St Abbs Head.


Crail harbour, Fife.

Of light and time and relative dimensions in space.

Next to castles, my favourite maritime buildings are lighthouses. On Saturday we paddled past the Rubh an Eun light (NS114526) on the east side of Glencallum Bay which is on the south of Bute in the Firth of Clyde. It has a red flash every six seconds. It was opened in 1911 and, although automated, it still looks like a proper lighthouse. Many of the smaller Scottish lights are being replaced by standard, square, prefabricated towers which look much like a TARDIS which has landed somewhat off course. A few stones at the head of Glencallum Bay are all that remain of a once bustling community that even had an inn. Time has all but erased evidence of former occupation of this now lonley spot. We shared it only with a seal and some eider ducks.

A long hard paddle to Bute.

It seems like ages since we have been out on the water, then last week's blue skies and light winds were so tempting. Unfortunately, a very busy week at work meant no possibility of taking a day off. The weather forecast for yesterday was "Wind: northwest 4 or 5 backing west 5 or 6, occasionally 7 later."

We were so desperate we decided to go anyway. We thought we could paddle out in the lee of some islands in the Clyde and so decided to head out to Bute, hopping there in the wind shadow of Little Cumbrae. Driving north past our usual launch site, the sandy bay at West Kilbride, there were white horses all the way to the horizon. We decided to continue to Tony's secret launch spot at the Hunterston nuclear power stations. This was nearer the Little Cumbrae and in its wind shadow.



There is no beach you just carry your boat down greasy rock ledges and away you go. Another slight drawback for those of a nervous disposition is the speedy arrival of the police to check you out. They seemed satisfied we were not terrorists and that our gear did not contain explosives. Mind you they did not find our parachute flares. Neither power station is producing electricity at the moment but the windmills on the hills above were birling round in the breeze. Further up the coast, the huge stack of the Inverkip oil powered power station has been smokeless for years.



The weather was characterised by great squalls passing through and in them, the west wind was 5 to 6 and the nearby Prestwick Airport METAR data showed gusts up to 30 mph. However, we got occasional blinks of sun when the wind dropped and it became quite pleasant. Once we were in the lee of the walls of the Little Cumbrae castle we could relax and enjoy the scenery. The castle was built in 1527 and is one of the best preserved keeps in Scotland. It has a renovated stair well and roof. The new owner of Little Cumbrae has a welcoming attitude and has painted out the former Keep Off signs. We enjoyed a great view from the top of the castle.



Still in the lee of the land, we approached Gull Point, the southern tip of Little Cumbrae. The basalt cliffs stand well back from the present shore line above a raised beach. Ahead lay the wind line and white horses. Rounding the point was quite bumpy then it was nearly straight into a force 5-6 wind for over 4 kilometers to Glencallum Bay on Bute.



The wind only eased for a few minutes between squalls. This was about half way across. Garroch Head on Bute is on the horizon. I was so out of condition and tired that if it had been just 100m more, I doubt if I would have made it. The worst bit was the last kilometer. Although the water flattened the wind increased as it accelerated down of the hills of Bute.



We had a very leisurely lunch and I got the Kelly Kettle on for a nice cup of tea. We then enjoyed a real blast down wind, at speeds of up to 12 km/hour, this time passing the north end of Little Cumbrae. There were lots of eider duck, guillemots and black guillemots we also saw several grey seals and a couple of youngsters who had moulted out of their white juvenile coats. The landing at Hunterston was rocky and damaging to gel coat. Tony wished he still had his poly Cappella! A great day out, given the forecast, neither of us would have gone on our own.

Winter sunset, Loch Etive

After what seems like three months of solid wind and rain, today, Blue Monday (supposedly the most depressing day of the year), dawned clear and bright in the West of Scotland. Yesterday was not very pleasant and today was a work day! It was a day just like the beautiful day we enjoyed in Loch Etive exactly a two years ago. After Jennifer paddled past me into the setting sun, I was dazzled by the beauty of droplets of water dropping off her paddle and landing on the surface of the sea. They stayed intact for a few moments, floating on the surface of the sea, until their surface tension broke and released them.



In this photo I was trying to get nice sharp drops coming off the paddle with a blurred background. I used the zoom at 150mm, set the lens at its maximum aperture of f3.2 and used a film speed of ISO 100 to get as little grain as possible. The drops did not really come out. I should have used a shorter shutter speed by setting film speed to ISO 200 or 400. Sometimes (quite often actually) the shot in your mind just does not come out. But you can always try!

Kelly Kettle Karrier

An apparently normal Quest on a Berneray beach in the Sound of Harris hides a secret. From outside my Quest looks completely standard... Well here is a shot of inside the cockpit...



OK so now you all know I am a fan of the Kelly Kettle and this is my Kelly Kettle Karrier. Cut from a block of ethafoam and glued in with contact adhesive, it has a piece of shockcord with one of those clever little red plastic shockcord cleats. I normally keep it in a thin nylon drybag and keep the centre full of kindling.


Kelly Kettle in action.

Time for a cuppa!

Quick brew stoves: high tech versus low cunning.

A version of this test first appeared in UK Paddles magazine in June 2005.

Introduction:

Increasingly sea kayaking is seen as a 4-season activity. Although in the coldest weather most trips are single day, kayakers venture into remote exposed areas. Last spring on a sunny day, I learned first hand how important it is to have means of making a quick brew on such trips. One of us fell out of the boat trying to land on a steeply shelving rocky beach. Another two slipped in above their waterproof trousers trying to recover hapless kayaker and boat. The water was freezing.

There was much laughter and we soon changed into dry clothes but the biting north wind had chilled us to the bone. Lunch had been early that day and our flasks were now empty. But fortunately my main camping stove and pans were still in my boat from a camping trip. We soon had piping hot drinks which not only physically warmed us, but did much to restore morale for the exposed 15 kilometre crossing ahead.

I resolved always to carry means of making multiple quick brews and began to look at the alternatives to full size cooking equipment more suitable for preparing full meals. I looked at 4 very different solutions: a traditional stainless steel flask by Aladdin; a gas mini stove/ mini cook set combination by OutdoorDesigns/MSR; a combined gas burner/boiler/cup by Jetboil and finally, a wild card entry, the wood burning Kelly Kettle.

The tests:

This test was carried out on a variety of trips including an extremely cold (frozen sea water) January trip to Loch Etive, a sunny but cold January trip to the Solway, a very windy and cold February surf trip to Doonfoot on the Clyde, a sunny but cold February trip to Loch Stornoway, a very cold and windy 5* assessment (as a guinea pig!) March weekend on Skye and finally, another windy cold March camping trip to Loch Bracadale, Skye. This tester’s call of duty extends far beyond a “back garden” test!

1. Aladdin Adventurer Vacuum Flask



Aladdin 0.75ml stainless steel flask. £9 from John Lewis.
Not all stainless steel flasks are the same. Some do not keep liquids hot for more than a couple of hours and some have an annoyingly complex push button spout that will not pour thick drinks and invariably unscrews itself into two pieces when you try to remove it. This flask is different. Unopened it will keep drinks hot for a full day’s paddling (8 hours) and it has a simple one piece screw cap which is easy to remove to pour thick soups. It is remarkably cheap but obviously has limited capacity and if only half the drink is used, the rest cools down quite quickly.

2. Mini stove/mini cook set/windshield





OutdoorDesigns mini gas stove. £30 (£15 in sale!); Cotswold Outdoor. (MSR do a similar design: the Pocket Rocket.)
MSR Duralite cookset 1.0l and 1.5l pans. £40; Tiso.
MSR Duralite frying pan. £19; Tiso.
HiGear folding aluminium windshield. £7; Tiso
Coleman self sealing screw fit butane/propane gas cylinders: range from 100g £2.50 to 500g £5.00; Tiso

The OutdoorDesigns mini gas stove fits on 100g or 500g screw on gas cylinders. It arrives in a neat plastic case and its 4 support arms fold out easily. It has a piezoelectric igniter that worked even in the coldest weather. The burner is a good size and the control valve allows a decent simmer with out burning. There is no built in windshield. Overall, this is a highly effective product and using the above combination, it boils a pint of water very quickly; see results for comparison.


MSR mini cook set with Kelly kettle base.

If you have not used MSR Duralite (hard anodised aluminium) pans yet, you really should try them. They conduct heat extremely efficiently and it is possible to cook thick drinks/food like soup and porridge easily and without burning. The effective non-stick means that they are easy to wipe clean. The stove and handle fit inside the smaller pan. The accessory frying pan adds versatility (bacon sandwiches, yum!) and fits the base of the pans for carrying in the supplied mesh bag. The whole fits a Quest sized day hatch cover.

The HiGear aluminium windshield is very light and folds flat for storage. It is large enough to shield not only the burner but also small pans, even when the burner is on top of a 500g gas cylinder. Unfolded into a “U” shape, it is self-supporting and it also has two sliding wire pegs that can be pushed into turf or sand for additional stability. This is highly recommended, not just for day trips but all camp cooking.

3. JetBoil



JetBoil burner/heat exchanger/cup. £65; Cotswold
As soon as I saw one of these, the “techie” in me just had to have one! It is made of first class materials and is of a unique design. The cooking pot/drinking cup is made of anodised aluminium and has a heat exchanger/wind shield permanently fixed to its base. A removable insulating neoprene sleeve with a sewn on holding strap covers the pot. There is a plastic lid with a drinking hole and a plastic cover to shield the base unit when the burner unit is removed after heating.

The burner unit attaches by a system of twist on lugs and slots but I had to use a file on the slots to get a good fit. The unit is designed to be self contained and the burner unit, with a 100g gas cylinder, fits inside the pot. If you store it this way, it is best to put the burner in a poly bag before putting it in the pot. Residual soup and or salt/sand from the base of the cylinder will set up an electrolytic reaction between the aluminium of the pot and the steel of the cylinder.

The combination of gas cylinder/, burner and pot is quite tall and the 100g cartridge is very narrow which makes the whole unstable. It is very easy to hold the top of the pot as the heat exchanger is so efficient but 500g cartridges would be more stable to use on a longer camping trip. Accessory pots are an (expensive) option which might be useful on a trip with more than one person, but an Aladdin insulated mug (£3.50 from John Lewis) is more than ten times cheaper! Another problem with drinking from the pot is that soup dribbles down the fabric cover of the neoprene jacket which is difficult to clean and would be rather unhygienic on a longer trip.

The JetBoil has piezo ignition that works well in temperate conditions but which failed to work in cold conditions, even when the OutdoorDesigns stove successfully ignited. A match soon had the JetBoil going but there is very little control over the flame and each time I attempted to cook soup it burned on the base. The pot proved very difficult to clean, as there is no non-stick. However, the unit was highly effective at boiling water. Even on a windswept, wave soaked reef, during the 5* rescue of a “casualty”, the JetBoil came up with a several hot drinks in a matter of minutes. This was very impressive. I noticed a problem with 100g cylinders, particularly when full and in colder conditions. Once lit, the burner tended to flare as liquid gas came through the burner. This burned the neoprene jacket and my fingers and the control valve was not adjustable enough to stop it.

4. Kelly Kettle



Kelly Kettle. £32; Scottish Paddler Supplies.

This wood-burning stove, of cunning design, is totally different from anything else. The kettle and the fire tray are made from aluminium. The centre of the kettle is a hollow, conical chimney that narrows from the base so most of the water is at the hotter top. It carries a pint of water retained by a large cork secured by a chain (remember to remove the cork before boiling.) The kettle on test did not leak but a friend’s dribbles a little through the cork so he carries the water separately. Only water can be boiled so if you want hot soup or porridge you will need to use a dried packet or one of the quick varieties of oats you can pour boiling water over, stir and eat.

Although it will burn anything, even damp wood, I have found carrying a small amount of finely split dried kindling to be very effective. Enough kindling and firelighters for 3 fires can be carried inside the chimney. The kettle smells strongly of smoke after use so I carry it in a heavy poly bag.



In use, a rocket of flame spouts from the top of the kettle and is very impressive and morale raising in windy conditions. With dried kindling no sparks escaped so it should not set the countryside alight! Within minutes you have a rolling boil and you can lift the kettle off the fire tray using the wooden handle and pour using the cork and chain to tip the kettle. You soon judge the exact amount of wood to achieve a boil and leave just a few embers that can either be doused or used to start another fire. It is very cheap to run and can be used to produce plentiful hot water for washing on a longer trip.

Last year on islands to the north and west of North Uist, we ran low on gas. A Kelly Kettle would have been a boon, as it will burn almost anything though damp wood does produce a lot of smoke. It also works extremely well in high wind conditions. My friend fell out his boat during a surf landing in force 5 conditions on a March camping trip to an island off the west coast of Skye. He was soaked and frozen and it was getting late. The Kelly Kettle produced a pint of boiling water for two drinks within minutes, in an exposed position that the gas stoves struggled in.

Results: boiling times.


If you do a Google search on these stoves, you will discover lots of web pages with pseudo scientific tests which measure heating times in great detail. In this test, on a sheltered beach in the Solway, from unpacking to boiling time, the mini stove/pan/windshield combination, the JetBoil and the Kelly Kettle all produced boiling water within 20 seconds of one another.

On an exposed island in force 4 to 5 winds, the Kelly Kettle really came into its own boiling a pint in a third of the time of the gas stoves. On a wet reef with no level ground to set a stove on, the hand held JetBoil boiled a pint in conditions where it was not possible to set either of the other stoves up.

The Scores:



Conclusions:

For a quick cup of soup, the flask is hard to beat but once you have drunk it, that’s it has limited application for an emergency quick brew. It also lacks the psychological boost of actually creating a hot drink, from a cold start, in hostile conditions.

The OutdoorDesigns mini stove/ MSR mini cook set/ windbreak combination proved the most versatile. Not only would it boil as quickly as the others you could also use it to cook soup or even a bacon sandwich (solid food is out with the remit of this test).

The JetBoil is very high tech, worked in moderate winds without a windshield and, uniquely, could boil when hand held (not recommended by the manufacturer). However, it has several design flaws, outlined above, and was not very good cooking thick liquids.

The Kelly Kettle proved its ability to boil water in any conditions that you can find a small level base for it. It seems impervious to wind and is cheap to run, burning almost anything.

So which one did I buy? Well they all have strong points so I ended up buying all four! Which one do I like best? Well if I have to choose, the Kelly Kettle has to be the overall test winner, a case of low cunning beats high tech!