Ferry gliding in strong winds.

All good sea kayaking blogs should carry instructive posts on technique. Today I have decided to tackle the important skill of ferry gliding in strong winds. I hope I am not presuming too much in that at least some readers will benefit from my experience of this issue.



On Sunday David and I went to Loch Fyne. I was a bit tired after a 30 km paddle round the Mull of Galloway the previous day. There was only two of us, so we took the Aleut Sea II double. Normally people don't come with us if we take the double as it can be quite fast.

It was quite breezy with a force 5 to 6 SE wind blowing up the loch. We pottered around in the shelter of the east side of the loch. There was a lot to keep us occupied, a vitrified fort, an old jetty, lovely sandy bays backed by indigenous woodland, little islands off shore and the biggest man made hole in Europe (830,000 cubic metres). We stopped for several luncheons, the last at lovely Ascog Bay but then I got a bit bored.

Looking out into the loch I noticed the wind and the driving waves heading straight downwind towards Tarbert. Goodness me, Tarbet has pubs and an ice cream shop! Then I remembered a chat with the guys from Stornoway canoe club. They are right into paddling downwind in the long sea Lochs of Lewis. A cunning plan was therefore hatched; to partake in some refreshment and gelati at Tarbert.



It was quite breezy and we covered the 8km at an average speed of 10.6km/hr with a maximum speed of 16.9 km/hr. The photograph does not really do justice to what the sea felt like. Despite paddling downwind, our paddles were being snatched by the wind. The waves were short and steep and did not seem to fit the length of the Aleut very well. One moment I would be surfing with free air under my seat in the front cockpit. The next the bow was buried up to my spraydeck with the rudder trying to get a grip in the air. With the boat threatening to broach we had to paddle like.... well vigourous sweep strokes were required!



I was quite tired by the time we got into the shelter of Tarbert.



Suitably refreshed we thought we had better make a start on the return journey. I noticed that the wind had now backed round to the east and was now straight in our teeth for the crossing back to Portavadie.



Paddling out of the shelter of East Loch Tarbert I noticed the line of breakers out in Loch Fyne. I also noticed the fishing boats were all returning to port. To make matters worse, paddling at full speed we could only make just over 2km/hr and that was before we hit the waves out in Loch Fyne. I stopped paddling to take the photo above and the wake shows we were going backwards despite the fact that David was still paddling like... well quite hard. A near 3 hour crossing at the end of a tough weekend's paddling did not hold much attraction. Then I saw a ship! A new plan, we turned our bow back towards Tarbert....



We had a very pleasant ferry glide home on MV Loch Riddon.

A perfect day to end up in 2000 Acres of Sky.

On Saturday we paddled to Port Logan, which featured in the BBC series "2000 Acres of Sky". The series was based on a fictional and remote island community called Ronansay which lay off the west coast of Skye.

Port Logan was originally called Port Nessock and in the 17th century attempts were made by the McDouall family to establish it as a ferry port for Ireland. They also built the Port Logan Inn which now makes a fine sea kayaking pub. (See here for what makes a good sea kayaking pub.)

The quay and Port Logan Light were built in 1830 by Colonel Andrew McDouall. The light is a conical stone tower with a platform for a lantern. It is not known when it was last lit but for sometime after that it had a bell, which was rung to guide local boats back in foggy conditions. A decent road to the village was not constructed until the early 20th century, so most of the village's trade and traffic depended upon the sea. A life boat station was built at Port Logan in 1866. It closed in 1932 as the RNLI lifeboat at Portpatrick, 18km to the north west, was motorised by then. The boat house is now the village hall which you can find near the quay.



We set off from Drummore and so had to pass one of the great headlands on mainland Britain. The Mull of Galloway is the most southerly point on Scotland. It juts into the Irish sea separating the Solway Firth from the North Channel between Scotland and Ireland. We were prepared for the strong tides and magnificent caves. What we were not prepared for was the stunning cliff coastline north west to Port Logan.

17/04/2007 lv asked "Do you have a panoramic photo of Port Logan?"

I do but it was shot in pretty flat light so it is not the best. Here it is...



I do not know where you stay but if you get the chance, you should visit Galloway. It is a wonderfully unspoilt region.

What a difference a day makes.

Yesterday we enjoyed sun and light winds rounding a major headland. Today when the clouds cleared and the sun came out, it brought a fresh SE wind. It funneled into the mouth of Loch Fyne in the Firth of Clyde. We paddled out into the middle of the loch where the wind and waves were at their best.



David in the Aleut Sea II



Then we turned downwind for a 6.5km blast to Tarbert with its ice cream parlour and the pub.

All in all, a pretty good weekend

Rainbow rock

Earlier today


A clue to rainbow rock's location. This cave is directly below one of the most prominent lighthouses on the Scottish mainland.

An Orange future for Barra and Vatersay but not for me.

This photo is of red haired, celtic cows on Bagh a Deas on Vatersay, the most southerly of the inhabited isles in the Outer Hebrides. It is especially for Michael, Hayden and Wenley and is one of a series of sea cow photos I am posting on this site.



On sea kayaking trips to the Outer Hebrides I usually take three PAYG SIM cards for O2, Vodaphone and Orange and I usually get mobile phone reception in most places but until now, not on Barra or Vatersay.

However, Orange recently started work constructing mobile phone masts on Bruernish and Bentangaval. It was hoped the network would be available from 09/03/2007. The mast at Bentangaval will also be used for the deployment of services provided by Connected Communities Broadband to create a wireless Internet network on the island.

The future might be Orange for Barra but not for Newton Mearns on the south of Glasgow. On 17/1/2007, as a result of local loop unbundling (LLU), Orange installed their own ADSL broadband equipment to replace equipment they had rented from BT. Since then my broadband has been just about unusable with download speeds of about 100 kbps (instead of the theoretical maximum of 6,500 kbps) and frequent drops of the connection. After much frustration, yesterday I requested my MAC code to transfer to another ISP. I will not be going to one of the free bundles with other services such as Sky satellite TV. I will be happy to pay for a decent reliable service.

Bag, a deer.

Kinloch Castle on Rum was built as a shooting lodge. It is full of stuffed things that once flew, ran, crawled or swam.



Its shooting books record days of hunting. On September the third 1925, Sir George Bullough killed a 7 point stag weighing 14 stone and 4 lbs on Kilmory hill with a 0.303 inch rifle. He was assisted by his stalker MacLeod.

In search of the monkey eating eagle of Rum.

The island of Rum is a rum old place. Most people associate it with the sea eagle but there are other eagles to be found on the island. On one of his trips on his yacht, SY Rhouma, George Bullough visited Japan and became friends with the Emperor. The Emperor gifted him this bronze monkey eating eagle with two matching incense burners, each topped by lesser eagles. George packed them away in a nook somewhere on Rhouma and brought them back to Kinloch Castle as souvenirs of his Far Eastern travels.



They now fight for attention with his other amazing collection of bric-a-brac and gegaws in the castle's Edwardian front room.

PS several people have emailed asking why I have stopped posting about weekend trips. Unfortunately since I spent some time working in the Children's Hospital in Pakistan I have been bothered by recurrent chest infections. I have not been out for three weekends now and I had to cancel a trip to Skye this weekend. So you will just need to put up with shots from the back catalogue for a little longer. :o)