A tale of three harbours and some ferrous sheep on Arran

In Mid April David and I caught the midday ferry to Arran. As we approached Brodick the mountains were cloaked in low mist.

We trollied the kayaks off the ferry and were prepared to launch almost as soon as the MV Caledonian Isles had cleared her jetty.

We planned an anticlockwise circumnavigation of Arran, a distance of about 90km. A southerly breeze began to clear the mist from the mountains and filled our sails.

We soon passed the first of Corrie's two harbours. Note the "sheep" bollards!The fact that it has two...

...tells you that neither is very good! The second has a houseboat and a replica longship in it and not a lot of water when we passed by. Geology students on their annual field trips and all equipped with yellow hard hats were everywhere!

The lovely sweep of Sannox Bay announced our arrival at the start Arran's remote north coast.

Sannox also has a harbour (with sheep bollard) but it is not much better than either of its neighbours at Corrie.

We stopped for a break at Sannox Bay.

The view from the sands into the mountains round Glen Sannox is one of the finest in Scotland.

The Mull of Logan

 In the middle of a sunny spell in April, the day dawned grey and drizzly at Portpatrick in SW Scotland. Tony and I met Jim (fresh from Skye) and Mark and Heather Rainsley who were visiting the area. Mark was keen to get some photos of Scottish coastal fortifications and Dunskey Castle fitted the bill!

We were headed south with the flood tide for the Mull of Logan, some 16km to the south. There is some excellent rock hopping on this stretch of coast.

Rounding Money Head, I put my sail up and nipped off to Ardwell Bay in front of the others as there was a nice little wind.

On the horizon some blue sky appeared...

...as the others came in to land.

Mark and Heather seemed to be enjoying their visit to Grey Galloway.

Despite the recent heatwave (it was 22C in Galloway the day before) the water temperature was only 6C. It was interesting to note that we all wore dry suits etc, unlike the recreational sit on top paddlers in Fleet Bay who were out in shorts and T shirts!

We didn't tell Mark about the Devil's Bridge arch at the Mull of Logan and let him go round the corner first. All we heard was "WOW!".

 At this point Tony and I took our farewells of the others. They were paddling on to Port Logan and lunch in the hotel before a taxi back to Portpatrick for the cars.

Tony and I now caught the ebb tide tide going north. There was still a force 3-4 northerly wind.

We knew there would be some excitement with wind against tide at Money Head, Knockienausk Head and Tandoo Point. We were right and got our faces wet, before facing the Easter Holiday crowds at Portpatrick!

Little Cumbrae sunset.

We met at Portencross at 730pm...

...and formulated a quick plan to paddle round Little Cumbrae Island.

 We set the controls...

 ...for the heart of...

 ...the sun.

 As we crossed to Gull Point it slowly sank in the west, turning from orange to red.

On our return, our way was lit by the glow of Hunterston nuclear power station. Fortunately Harvey was with us and as he works there, we assumed it was quite safe.

Ailsa sunset.

It is always sad to leave Ailsa Craig and its teeming bird colonies. Mostly we don't look back...

 ...mainly because the return involves crossing a busy shipping channel. We stopped to let MV Johanna Desiree pass in front of us. She was bound from Ayr to Santander at 10.8 knots. Behind us, the P&O Express from Larne to Troon passed at a faster 30.6 knots!

 As the rock slowly receded...

 ...the sun sank towards the horizon...

...and we enjoyed another wonderful sunset  from the skerries of the Lendalfoot shore.

A quick shag on Ailsa Craig.

It was now time to paddle round Ailsa Craig. We had arranged to meet Alan and Linda from the Castle Craig Kayak Club. We set off anticlockwise, past the walkway round to the north foghorn and quarry.

We emerged from the darkness under the cliffs of Eagle's Seat...

...followed by this grey seal. "Look at the eyebrows on that!"

Jim was delighted with how the borrowed Taran performed, responding to edging, even when fully loaded with camping gear for a week.

It was only  12 days since my last visit but since then the fulmars, kittiwakes, guillemots, black guillemots and razorbills had joined the gannets. The puffins had not yet arrived (I only saw one on the water) though on land regiments of plastic puffins waited to encourage feathered visitors.

We took some time to drift along under the gannet colonies to Stranny Point.

This quick shag flew in low under the guillemots and nearly collided with Jim!

 We marvelled at the structure and colour of the cliffs.

Then we had to prepare for the long crossing back to Ayrshire.

White like a swan...

From the foghorn we made our way back to the lighthouse.

It is now fully automatic and solar powered.

Unlike some lighthouses, it still has a proper lens system. This rotate continuously, even during day time, for increased reliability.

The lighthouse itself is immaculately maintained with gleaming whitewash...

...but sadly, the former keeper's cottages have fallen into disrepair after the NLB sold them to someone who wanted to develop them into holiday cottages but abandoned the project. Vandals have broken into the buildings.

The lighthouse keeper's books and notebooks are still lying where they left them. This hand written note has survived being used to light a fire:

"Be like a swan - calm and serene on the top - and paddling crazy down below!"

A great bellowing on Ailsa Craig.

We heard the bellowing long before we came to the south foghorn on Ailsa Craig.

It obviously wasn't coming from the foghorn as it has been silent since 1966. We passed a row of nine massive but rusting compressed air tanks that provided the "oomph" for the horn. They were supplied by a 2.5" inch pipe that ran 700m from the compressor in the gasworks round to the south of the island.

The air horn emerged from the top of a massive Victorian concrete tower. This and a similar horn at the north end of the island were completed in 1886. The gas engine for the air compressor was replaced by a diesel engine in 1911 and this ran until the horns were decommissioned in 1966. As a boy in Ayr, I remember hearing the foghorns at a distance of 38km! On our visit, the bellowing noise seemed to be coming from below the foghorn.

We spotted the source of the noise. It was grey seal bulls, in the sea and on the rocks below.

Inside the tower there is a remarkable arrangement of pipes, air tanks and the horn itself.

The foghorn is on one of the flight paths from the nearby gannet colony. As the gannets launched off the cliff behind, it looked like they were emerging from the horn itself!

The gannets were busy gathering nesting material for their nests which are...

...situated hundreds of feet up on rocky ledges on the cliffs of the south and west faces of the Craig.