Sea kayaking Stac Lee and the great cave of Boreray

As we paddled under the amazing cliffs of Stac Lee, Simon took station on the bows of the Cuma to film the proceedings.

Stac Lee is the second biggest stac in the British Isles and it blotted out much of the sky as we approached its base. As we slowly paddled beneath it we caught sight of the two great caves of Boreray ahead of us...

 ...and a little further round the largest stac, the great rock fin of Stac an Armin rose from the sea like a menacing giant shark!

It was not just our sight that was being overloaded by the sensational environment at the base of Stac Lee. We were deafened by the constant croaking of thousands of gannets, the smell of their guano overwhelmed our noses and even took our breath away.

A combination of looking up at the thousands of gannets wheeling in the air above, a heaving swell and the smell of the guano meant that we needed to be careful to hang on to our luncheons. Some gannets were not so lucky. Marauding bonxies chased them till they vomited their catch. The bonxies then fought over the partially digested fish.

We now paddled towards the northernmost of the pair of great caves on Boreray.

Gordon went in first. He wanted to see if it would be possible to paddle through a narrow slot at the back of the cave and emerge from another entrance several hundred metres further north. It was and he did but no one else felt up for this aqueous roller coaster in the dark!

There was room for all of us in the cave. There was a boulder beach at the back but it was much too rough to land. What a viewpoint the inside of the cave made. Stac Lee was perfectly framed by the arching roof of the cave.

The Cuma nosed in so that Simon could film us emerging from the darkness of the cave for the DVD he is making. When we emerged we discovered that the wind had got up and was now whistling round the cliffs. It looked like the rest of our Boreray paddle would be even more exciting!

A pair of superlative transits!

 We now started the 8.2km open crossing from Hirta to Boreray. The Cuma soon left us behind...

 ...and we were left in the silence of the open Atlantic. To the south, the cliffs of Conachair rose above us for 430m, to the summit of the island of Hirta.

 As we paddled steadily onwards....

...the cliffs of Hirta and...

...Soay  gradually receded....

 ...to be replaced by the open expanse of the Atlantic.

After slack water in Soay Sound, the tide had now changed and was running right to left. We had THE most amazing pair of transits for the crossing...the top of Stac Lee and the summit of Boreray!

 As we approached the Stacs and Boreray, the air filled with wheeling gannets. All our senses were being assailed by the wonder of this archipelago of superlatives.

A quick check with Murdani on the Cuma resulted in a change of plan. The wind was now picking up quickly from the SW so the plan to circumnavigate Boreray was abandoned. The Cuma would now pick us up off the east coast of  Boreray after we explored the north coast of the island..

Sea kayaking through the "Gates of Hell", St Kilda!

 After lunch on MV Cuma, we entered Soay Sound at slack water and passed to the east of Stac Dona.

Ian and I could not help but stop to take photos. The horizon looked very flat but the scale of the stacs dwarfed the...

 ...size of the swell at their bases and...

 ...we were paddling right through Soay Stac from east to west... Yikes! It would be fair to describe the conditions in the arch as somewhat lively!

It was with some relief that we all got through safely and were able to look back at these great stacs, which are known in Scottish sea kayaking circles as the Gates of Hell!

We were now on the west side of Soay Stac and were about to leave the coastal waters of...

...Hirta and Soay  to paddle across the open Atlantic, some 168km west of the Scottish mainland. We were now truly kayaking at the edge of the World!  St Johns in Newfoundland was a mere 3128km away to the WSW.

Let's do lunch, in Soay Sound, St Kilda!

 The Cuma was lying waiting for us in the shelter of Soay and...

 ...we boarded her for a first class lunch break.

 It is difficult to imagine a more impressive spot for lunch.

This view shows Stac Dona in the foreground with the tall slender Stac Biorach and Soay Stac behind. Boreray can just be seen in the distance between Soay Stac and the headland of An Campar on Hirta to the right. After lunch our route would take us to Boreray, right through the heart of Soay Stac!

 Soon it was time to get back in the kayaks and...

...bid farewell to Cuma, just as a pod of six dolphins cruised by.

Sea kayaking the SW and W coasts of Hirta, St Kilda

The SW coast of Hirta falls sheer into the sea. Despite the sea level being unchanged for about 6,000 years and being exposed to one of the greatest average wave energies in the British Isles, there is no wave cut platform though there are many geos, arches and caves.

We were paddling NW towards the gap between Soay and Hirta, where we had arranged a rendezvous with the MV Cuma.

It was too rough for even Gordon to paddle through the arch at the foot of Mullach Bi (which we had looked down upon the previous day). However, Gordon and Callum went through a gap in the skerries, which had monstrous swells breaking through.

This wasn't enough for Gordon so he found an offshore skerry with a gap...

...that had jagged teeth at the bottom. After studying it for a while, he nipped round the outside...

...then successfully powered through before...

...the swell receded revealing those teeth.

Turning a corner, we now paddled below the equally dramatic west coast of Hirta.

Ken was doing a lot of paddling in the double as Simon, up front, shouted directions as he filmed our progress.

We now approached Soay Sound and we could see Murdani in the Cuma scouting the conditions beyond the stacs.

We had arrived early because the swell had precluded detailed exploration of all the arches and caves.

Murdani had judged that the tide race through the gaps between Soay, Stac Biorach 73m, Soay Stac 61m and An Campar 270m on Hirta was not still not conducive to safe sea kayaking. So he motored over to the SE coast of Soay and prepared a lunch for us while we waited for slack water by the stacs. One by one, we paddled across Soay Sound towards the Cuma.

Ian enjoys paddling the Etain in front of Soay Stac, on the way to a luncheon stop with a difference!.

Escape from the bustle of Hirta; by sea kayak through Dun!

On the morning of 14th June, Village Bay, Hirta was a noisy, busy place. First the peace was disturbed by the rumbling diesel of L105 HMAV Arromanches arriving with a load of oil for the power station. Then the interminable Health and Safety reversing beeper of St Kilda's heavy tractor echoed round the hills.

The "beep beep beep" was then joined by a "whup whup whup" as PGD helicopters' G-PDGN (a Eurocopter AS365N Dauphin 2) brought in Qinetiq workers  and supplies for the base and prepared to take relieved workers and the mail out.

In comparison our departure was in near silence. The weather was fair but the forecast was for a front to come in from the SW by late afternoon with force 4 to 5 winds and increasing swell.

So we wasted no time and quickly passed the Dun Gap...

...on our way to Seilg Geodha. This cave system goes right through Dun and two days before we had entered from the other side  but were unable to get through the slot due to swell from the NE.

This time we got through the slot into the main cavern where we had been before but frustratingly heavy swell, this time from the SW, meant we could not get right through again!

We emerged back into the calm of Village Bay...

...then made our way in increasing swell towards...

...the Great Arch of Dun. This is looking through towards the SW. The photo makes it look as flat as a pancake but this is a huge arch and the scale swamps the size of the swell. This was bouncing back off the right hand wall and breaking over a shallow reef that lies right in the middle of the channel.

With some careful timing...

...the passage through the arch was successfully negotiated....

...and we made our way along the SW coast of Dun.

The swell increased...

...as we approached the Dun Gap. Gordon made the most of the swell wrapping round Cul Cleite. We had now completed our exploration of Dun and were about to experience the exposed SW coast of Hirta!