St Cormac's Chapel

The MacCormaig Islands lie within the powerful tides of the Sound of Jura. They are a great sea kayaking destination. Not only is it interesting getting there but they are fascinating to explore. On Eilean Mor is the 12th century Chapel dedicated to St Cormac (d.640). In the distance are the Paps of Jura and in front stands the shaft of an early Celtic cross. Unfortunately the round stone bearing the cross has fallen off but you can see the cut outs in the shaft where the cross once sat.



Inside the vaulted chancel there is a small crypt covered with a slab decorated with the effigy of an ecclesiastical figure. Some believe that this is the tomb of St Cormac but he was buried some distance away on the island and of course the chapel was not built until 600 years after his death.

The bridge over the Atlantic.

In a recent post on Easdale, I mentioned the Island of Seil. Since 1793, a single arch bridge has connected Seil to the mainland of Lorn south of Oban. The delicate sandstone arch on Tanera Beag brought the Clachan Bridge to mind. It spans the tidal Clachan Sound which is connected to the ocean, hence its common name "the bridge over the Atlantic". The narrow Clachan Sound runs straight for 1.5 kilometers before it joins the Seil Sound to the south to the Firth of Lorn to the north. Some think it must have been dug out as a canal but it is natural, occupying a fault line. It is a sheltered highlight on a circumnavigation of Seil but you need to get the tides right as the Sound can run like a river!

The Rum Cuillin and Bloodstone Hill

This is the view from the turquoise lagoon in the skerries at the mouth of Loch nan Ceal, Arisaig. The Cuillin of Rum are not so well known as their sisters on the misty isle of Skye but they have been attracting seafarers for thousands of years. Modern day Scottish sea kayakers know that one day they will paddle the wild shores of the Small Isles of the Inner Hebrides. The great arch in my recent post abuts onto Rum's remote north shore where Bloodstone Hill tumbles straight into the Sound of Canna. Bloodstone is one of the few rocks in Scotland which is good for making stone implements. It was also here that the sea eagle was reintroduced to Scotland.

Our ancestors have been visiting Rum for at least 7,500 years. A camp with a heap of hazel nut shells has been carbon dated to that time. Bloodstone arrow heads and axe heads have been found at great distances from the lonely isle of Rum. These people worked and traded bloodstone 3,000 years before the first stone was laid in an Egyptian pyramid.

At that time their boats were dug out canoes hewn from a single tree trunk. We modern kayakers paddle in the wakes of countless generations of skilled seafarers. It is humbling.

Dunure Castle and the roasting of the Abbot!

The grim walls of Dunure Castle on the Ayrshire coast can be best appreciated from the sea. After all, the sea was the motorway in the age of the great maritime castles of Scotland. At that time travel across land was time consuming, arduous and dangerous. The castles were built to control the faster sea routes used by travellers, traders and invaders.

They all have a history but few can have been witness to such an awful deed as the roasting of the Abbot of Crossraguel Abbey. In 1570 Gilbert, the 4th Earl of Cassillis, kidnapped the Abbot, Alan Stewart, and threw him into the Black Vault which lay deep within the walls of Dunure. Here he roasted Stewart on a spit until he agreed to sign over the Church's land to Gilbert.



Today you can paddle into the nearby fishing harbour of Dunure. The village pub, the Anchorage, is as convenient for the sea as the castle. It makes a welcome stop for the modern day seafaring kayaker.

Sea kayaking heaven: a gneiss time on Lewis.

Here are more memories of a fantastic summer. I have posted a full photo gallery of our summer trip to NW Lewis over on the Scottish Sea Kayaking Photo Gallery. This is an extreme form of self indulgence but in the middle of a very poor spell of weather, when I am not feeling particularly well, it is rather nice reliving such adventures.

Arch #2

The second in an occasional series of arches; another island and another rock. This graceful arch is of Torridonian (old red) sandstone and is on the lovely isle of Tanera Beg in the Summer Isles. These lie at the mouth of Loch Broom in the north west of Scotland.

Arch #1

There are few sights more satisfying on a sea kayaking trip than an arch. I especially like ones you can paddle through. You really feel you are interacting with environment when you are under an arch. This one just invited us through. I think part of the attraction is that, just like us, an arch is mortal and will not be there forever.

To my mind nothing defines the interface between land and sea so well as an arch.

This magnificent arch is at the foot of Bloodstone hill on the island of Rum. Green agates are found in this rock. They contain little tiny red flecks of iron, and it is these that give the stone and the mountain its name.

The geology here is very complex, Bloodstone Hill lies at the boundary of granite and Torridonian sandstone. It is also covered with sedimentary conglomerate rocks containing igneous rocks from the eruption which formed the Cuillin of Rum. These sedimentary rocks are then covered with lava flows that are younger than the Rum eruption and which probably came from the later Mull eruption to the south.



If you look carefully at the top slopes of Bloodstone Hill, you can see where these lavas have flowed over the top of the hill and started to run down ancient river valleys. The lava solidified before it got to the sea and has left steep escarpments.