Navigational aids: #7 The luncheon beacon.

Leaving Burrow Head, we paddled past the rather grandly named...

...Isles of Burrow.

Eventually (and remember we were still quite without luncheon) we noticed a white beacon above the line of apparently unbroken rock. Jim was new to the south west but immediately understood its meaning. This was a luncheon beacon!

Through a gap in the rocks, we slipped into Isle of Whithorn harbour.

We landed beside the outer harbour wall and prepared our well deserved victuals. It is not often we paddle non stop for 20km before first luncheon.

The Devil's bridge of Burrow Head.

Due to lost time on the shuttle, we had started a little later than planned. We still needed to meet the tidal window at Burrow Head and so we skipped first luncheon,  carrying on towards the Head.

Close to the head, a strong counter eddy forms in the last 2 hours of both the flood and the ebb, particularly so at springs. This means that "slack water" close under the rocks occurs when the main race is still stonking off shore. If there is any wind against tide the main race will look quite scary and the eddy line will create very confused water. As you are approaching the head to take advantage of the inshore slack, you will see great lumps of water from the main race heaving on the horizon and you can have a bit of a dry mouth before you round the corner and actually see what it is like.

Our missed luncheon allowed a calm passage at just about slack water. The tide was only moving at 1 knot.

The rock architecture at Burrow Head really is quite superb.

After our non stop dash to the Head, it was a great joy to drift in the tide...

...beneath upended layers of Silurian Greywacke.

All too soon we had rounded the Head and slipped under...

...the Devil's Bridge.

Touching the past on the way to Burrow Head.

At Bloody Neuk, about 4km short of Burrow Head, we came across the wreck of the SV Chile, which came to grief here in WW1.

Although she was a sailing vessel, she had steam powered winches...

to work her rigging.

There is nothing quite like touching the wreck of a once great ship...

...as mental preparation for rounding a distant headland, with a notorious tide race.

Less fond of basking sharks than otters.

We paddled down the Machars peninsula and across Monreith Bay. Phil's silhouette was ringed by the bright water of  Luce Bay.

Crazy drystone dykes marched across the Galloway hillsides and raised beaches. I have already mentioned that Port William was planned by Sir William Maxwell. One of his descendants, Gavin Maxwell, fisherman, turned naturalist, then author, was brought up in Elrig, just north of Port William. His books included; The House of Elrig and Ring of Bright Water. This is the story of Edal, an otter he brought from Iraq to Sandaig on the remote north west of Scotland. He was less fond of basking sharks than he was of otters. He established a shark fishery on the island of Soay, south of Skye. By the time he had finished, he had exterminated just about all the basking sharks on the west coast. To commemorate this son of Galloway, a brass otter has been placed on the cliff top high above Monreith Bay.

Right on cue, this fine otter surfaced as we passed below Maxwell's memorial.

It had a crab in its mouth and I heard the crunch of shell as the otter swam past to lunch on the rocks.

A peculiarly cold form of burnishment, in Port William.

The tide was ebbing fast from the little harbour of Port William. The village was  planned and built in the 1770's by Sir William Maxwell of Monreith.

The harbour is one of very few on the west of Galloway and like most in the area it dries out. Although the sun was now rising in the sky, the roofs of the village houses were still covered in frost.

Our departure was watched over by "the Man"...

...a weathered sculpture in bronze  by local man Andrew Brown (2005). I think he has caught something of the character of the good folk of the Machars. The verdigris caused by exposure to the sea air has been burnished  by the shoulders and arms of many tourists who take time to share his viewpoint.

What is this life, if full of care,

We have no time to stand and stare?

W.H. Davies

The winter sun also burnished the sea but it was a peculiarly cold form of burnishment.

We pressed on to make up time which was lost deep in those Galloway lanes.

The whole of Luce Bay is designated as a Special Area of Conservation.

We paddled past clear waters off the Point of Lagg which were...

...backed by the rugged cliffs of Cairndoon.

We were so far south that there was almost a whiff of civilisation in the air.

At the end of January we drove far to the south, into the recesses of Galloway's remote Machars peninsula.

The winter sun struggled into the sky above the distant Burrow Head, a mysterious headland, which is isolated by the swirling tides that scour the Irish Sea.

We convened at the little harbour of Port William. Our arrival did not go unnoticed, the local sea kayaker braved the minus 5 degree frost to bid us welcome.

To the north, a line of clouds betrayed the reason for the long drive south to Scotland's second most southerly point. We were about the same latitude as Hartlepool in England! So far south were we that  if you took a deep breath, you could almost get a whiff of civilisation in the air.

Out at sea the mysterious Scares floated on the horizon.

The shuttle to Garlieston was rather complicated by the myriad of small Galloway lanes, which ran in all directions. We did not return the same way we went, indeed we almost never saw Port William again and fully expected to drive into Lord Summerisle's estate. Our usual navigational ploy of keeping the land on our left had failed miserably. Since Jim and I were concentrating on the driving, the excessive use of global warming liquids fell squarely on Phil's shoulders.

Sea kayaking round Kerrera

From Oban sea front round Kerrera, a 23km day paddle on the Firth of Lorn, February 2011.

Crossing Oban Bay to Kerrera. 

Although we started in the town, most usually the best launches would be from Corran Esplanade or from Ganavan Sands. You can also launch over rocks north of the Kerrera ferry, opposite yacht moorings but not at the ferry itself.

Tidal flows.

Sound of Kerrera the flood enters the south end and exits the north end by Oban.

In mid channel:
NE going flood begins +0430 HW Oban (-0100 HW Dover) 1 to 2.5 knots springs.
SW going ebb begins -0155 HW Oban (+0500 HW Dover)  1 to 2.5 knots springs.

In the channel between Bach Island and Kerrera.
Times as above flow 2.5 knots springs. Wind against tide here can cause a nasty steep sea.

Kerrera is usually seen as a beginner trip but even in the calm conditions of this trip we were unable to land on the south coast due to swell. I have never been able to land at Gylen Castle.

Better days in the Sound of Kerrera

Max, the parrot vampire of Kerrera!

Turning a corner on Kerrera

Wot a Loti toing and froing in Oban harbour.

Swanning about in Oban.


A previous trip.