Saturday, December 16, 2006

Easdale islander initiative



The little island of Easdale (which I recently described ) has been cut off from its larger neighbour, the island of Seil for nearly a week. Winter storms have shifted the slate spoil at the mouth of its sheltered harbour. The open passenger ferry boat has been unable to access its jetty and islanders have been stranded on the mainland and schoolchildren have been unable to get to school. The local council were not making very fast progress to dredge the harbour but The Herald reports a story of great island initiative. Islander Mike Mackenzie bought a 12 ton JCB excavator on the mainland and had it shipped to Easdale on a landing craft. He then spent 36 hours excavating the harbour mouth himself and restored the islanders' ferry link. Wonderful!



Easdale has 60 permanent residents and 13 of these are children of school age or younger. The island is car free and the passenger ferry takes just 5 minutes to cross to Seil.



The harbour was built in the 18th century and its beautifully constructed walls are now protected by an architectural "B" listing. There is a great deal of interesting industrial architecture and heritage on Seil as it was once a centre for slate mining.



It is easy to kayak through the narrow harbour mouth and explore the sheltered jetties and inlets within.



The little harbour is dominated by the bulk of Dun Mor on Seil and by the initiative of the islanders.

Friday, December 15, 2006

Torridonian Giants and Dwarves.



I mentioned Torridonian old red sandstone in a recent post on Rum. Here it is in situ in Loch Shieldaig which is an arm of Loch Torridon. The distant sunlit peaks are the sand stone giants, Beinn Alligin and Liathach. The little tree capped Sgeirean Mora is dwarfed by the giants but like them it is made of old red sandstone and stands in splendid isolation. The peace was only disturbed by a mother otter playing with her cub in the kelp.

Thursday, December 14, 2006

Cardoness Chapel



This is the peaceful view from Cardoness Chapel which is tucked away amongst sessile oaks on the tidal Fleet estuary on the Solway. It was built in the late 18th century by the laird of Cardoness for his wife as a place of prayer and quiet contemplation. The chapel is one of the smallest in Scotland. It is never locked and when the tide is in you can sea kayak right up to the lovely sandy cove at its feet. At low water springs the tide retreats almost 3 kilometers over the Solway sands.



I will be talking about Fleet Bay in a future podcast on Simon Willis's site. The Solway is a much neglected part of Scotland's coastline but it is full of surprises. At the moment it is coming up to the end of University term and at the hospital lots of people are wanting to be seen before Christmas. In a word, my life is frantic at this time of year. I find the view from the Chapel window helps to restore tranquility.

Wednesday, December 13, 2006

Odd one out at Belnahua.



Summer 2006 was a prolific year for jellyfish on Scotand's west coast. Some say it is due to global warming, some that it is a result of overfishing. However, giant swarms have always appeared; they drift north feeding on plankton. I have never been able to understand their life cycle. How do they or their polyp offspring get back south again?

In a swarm of thousands of cyanea lamarckii (the blue jelly fish) I spotted this solitary yellow one at Belnahua. Jellyfish reproduce sexually and it is likely to be an albino, caused by inheriting two rare recessive mutations, one from each parent. Albinos are seen in many lifeforms.



Looking south from Belnahua in the Sound of Luing to the mountains of Scarba.

Tuesday, December 12, 2006

Jura: writers and stones

It has just been announced that the British writer Will Self will be the first writer in residence at the restored Craighouse Lodge near the Jura whisky distillery. He is following in the footsteps of George Orwell who sought the solitude of Jura to write "1984" in the remote farmhouse of Barnhill in the north east of the island.




Sea kayakers are also drawn to Jura. Its famous Paps guide their crossing of the Sound of Jura. The tides can be taken advantage of and a day trip is possible.



We launched at Carsaig Bay on the mainland and landed here at Tarbert Bay on Jura's east coast. Just behind the beach is a solitary, lichen covered standing stone of great antiquity. Some standing stones might have been connected with astronomy, others with religion or sacrifice. Possibly this one was simply a meeting place. Long before the written word, our ancestors were communicating with each other round stones like these. Unfortunately their oral tradition has long been lost.

With all our technology, is it likely our blogs will generate discussion in thousands of years? I think not, our enjoyable electronic chatter is far too ephemeral. Will 1984 still be read? If it is, will its meaning be understood, so far removed from the troubled times it was written in? I wish Will Self well in his endeavours. He may find inspiration at Tarbet Bay beside the stone of our ancestors. We might not know what its message means but it has transcended 4,000 years.

PS I can thoroughly recommend the 25 year old Jura malt.

Monday, December 11, 2006

Sperm whale comes ashore.

A 40 foot sperm whale has died on the beach at Roseisle near Burghead in Morayshire in Scotland's North East. This is near where I spent my childhood and where both Cailean and my brother now live. Sperm whales are deep diving whales and prefer the deeper waters off the West coast of Scotland. The waters of the North Sea are relatively shallow and the whales are rarely seen in these waters. However, the RAF recently spotted a pod of nine whales (possibly sperms) not from where this sad corpse was found. Sperm whales are toothed whales and dive to depths of 300 metres to catch their favoured food, giant squid. Their record dives have been as deep as 3,000 metres.



In Easter 2006 a 65.5 foot fin whale was trapped on the rocks at Barlocco reef on the Solway, (photo above). It came ashore at a high spring tide and was trapped on the razor sharp fangs of rock that characterise that part of the Solway Firth. Apparently it was 65.5 feet exactly as below the 65 foot size it would have been the responsibility of the local authority to dispose of. As it was found to be over 65 foot, it was the responsibility of the Scottish Executive. Fin whales are baleen whales and filter small organisms through great plates that hang down from their upper jaws. Its tongue was bigger than a Volvo estate car. It was humbling to paddle so close to this leviathan of the deep.

Recent research has discovered that sperm whales, fin whales, killer whales and humpback whales have spindle cells in the anterior cingulate cortex and the frontoinsular cortex spindle cells. Previously these cells had only been found in the brains of primates. In humans, these parts of the brain control emotional functions such as love, hurt, social organisation, empathy, speech, intuition and rapid "first impression" reactions.

We do not know if these cells have a similar function in whales but they have been evolving them for 30 million years, which long predates humans' appearance on the planet. I think it would be presumptuous of our species to assume that they do not have a similar function.

Scotland used to be one of the most active whaling nations on earth. After we killed our own whales our whaling ships then scoured the seas of Antarctica for more prey. These whalers were brave men. My mother's great uncle was a west coast whaler who lost his life at sea. Today I am proud to live in a nation that has now chosen not to hunt these magnificent creatures.

Sunday, December 10, 2006

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.

Saturday, December 09, 2006

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!

Friday, December 08, 2006

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.

Thursday, December 07, 2006

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.

Wednesday, December 06, 2006

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.

Tuesday, December 05, 2006

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.

Monday, December 04, 2006

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.

Sunday, December 03, 2006

Indoor echoes of dripping water.



How prophetic was yesterday's post? I went to bed and dreamed of dripping Hebridean caves and woke to a steady drip somewhat closer to home. Last night Glasgow was lashed by winds up to force 9 and torrential rain. My roof was damaged and the rain has driven in.



Today's BBC's synoptic chart shows more winds of up to force 9 again will hit Glasgow and the Clyde. I would normally have gone windsurfing at Troon but I have a dental abscess at the moment. A sore head and a leaking roof are not a good combination. I must cheer myself with another summer memory.



PS Sunday 21:25 hrs. Wind and rain are increasing; strategic pots have been placed. Why oh why did I post about dripping water?!!

Saturday, December 02, 2006

Subterranean echoes of dripping water.



As I paddled alone deep inside the cave, the sounds of the outside world gradually diminished. There was only the gentlest of swell and it hardly disturbed the calm at the back of the cave. After some moments my ears and eyes gradually adjusted to the noises and colours in the cave. There was the most wonderful sound of water dripping from the darkness of the cave roof into the sea beside me. The drips echoed round walls of iridescent reds and greens above a turquoise sea.



This is sea kayaking

Friday, December 01, 2006

Easdale buoys, fools and slates.



We took the Aleut Sea II out to the small island of Easdale that lies off the west coast of Argyll's Island of Seil. We landed on a beach of dark grey slates.



These buoys adorned a building of slate.



Climbing to the top of the island, we saw the great flooded slate quarries that have hollowed out this island's heart. The photo shows the breaches in the quarry wall that a tidal wave made during the great storm of 1881. At low tide the walls are still complete and locals try and catch the fish that have been trapped inside. The quarries go down to 80m below sea level. At their peak of production, in the 1860s, Easdale slates were exported to, Australia, New Zealand, the Caribbean, the United States, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland and Labrador.



Easdale slate is very fine grained but it contains little cubes of iron pyrites or "fool's gold". If you break the slate open the crystals shine brightly but they soon rust when exposed to the air. If you live in one of the above countries and you come across a building with a slate roof have a look and see if the slates came from the little island of Easdale.

After the collapse of their industry, the miners and their families followed their slates to Australia, New Zealand........ They carried the names of their families and villages with them.

Thursday, November 30, 2006

Cuan Sound.



One of the most fun things to do in a sea kayak is to play in a nice tidal race. Between the islands of Seil and Luing lies the narrow Cuan Sound.



The flood tide is compressed as it travels up the great Sound of Jura and through Shuna Sound until it squirts out through the Cuan sound at up to 15km/hour.



As the tide turns the flow reverses and unlike the tide in more open waters it reaches maximum speed very shortly after turning.



In a recent post about wind farms Iona commented that tidal power is efficient and less intrusive. The Cuan Sound is one of the sites under consideration for a tidal barrage or fence to generate electricity.

We enjoy the Cuan Sound while it is still a free ride through!

Wednesday, November 29, 2006

Psalm 59 on Scarp



In a recent post I mentioned the remote island of Scarp off the west coast of Harris in the Outer Hebrides. After the failure of rocket mail its inhabitants were finally connected to the mainland by submarine telephone in 1947. It was destroyed by a storm in 1970 and the GPO refused to replace it. The islanders finally evacuated Scarp in 1971. By tradition they had left a Bible in each house. By the summer of 2006 the houses were in a sorry state after 35 years of winter storms. In one house pages of a bible had blown about the windowless room.



Some days later we met the gentlemen in the centre of the photograph on Canna in the Inner Hebrides. It turned out he had grown up on Scarp until his family emigrated to Glasgow. We had a book about Scarp Hebridean Island, Memories of Scarp. He was able to identify many of the individuals in old photographs reproduced in the book.

Tuesday, November 28, 2006

Courses, bearings and GPSs



Most sea kayak navigation is done by identifying coastal features, checking on the map where you are in relation to them then paddling towards the one you want to get to. However, fog, night or tide might make things more difficult. I used to be a Luddite when it came to GPS units and it is fair to say that although I am a technophile, I was a late GPS adopter.



In this case I want to paddle to the channel to the south of Pabbay Beag from Stacanan Neideaclibh. The horizon is pretty featureless so I can take a grid bearing off the map, convert it to a magnetic bearing and the course is 89 degrees between the two points. I now paddle on a heading of 89 degrees and I should get there. But if there is a tide carrying me north from the course line, my bearing to my destination will change to say 92 degrees. I will have no way of knowing this unless I have calculated the speed and direction of the current before hand or if I have identified a more distant landmark behind my destination and the two move relative to one another (this is called using a transit). In this case there is no suitable transit landmarks.

This is where a GPS comes in. I set a waypoint in its memory for the place I want to get to by either; 1. entering a grid reference, 2. on a mapping GPS scrolling the pointer to the map position then pressing the MARK key or 3. if I was there earlier in the day, by pressing the MARK key when I was in the middle of the channel.

Next I press the FIND key and select the waypoint. The GPS then calculates the distance and course from your start location. Most GPS units have a GOTO page which displays a large arrow which points on a compass rose to the bearing from your current location to your destination. If you drift off course then the bearing changes. On simple GPS units the bearing pointer points to the top of the screen if you are on course. On more sophisticated units the bearing pointer will point to the destination if it is held flat. This is all pretty complicated to describe and in practice in rough water and if your eyesight is not very good, you will end up a long way off course before you detect the change in the bearing arrow.
In practice it is easier to monitor any change in the bearing as a number. On my Garmin GPSMap76cs I can set the bearing to the destination on a large type screen as a number. This is very easy to see especially for those elder paddlers whose close up vision is no longer what it was. If the tide carries me off course to the north, the bearing might Increase to 92 degrees. I now paddle more to the rIght and the bearing comes back to the course of 89 degrees. If I was carried off course to the south, the bearing might dEcrease to 86 degrees. I now paddle more to the lEft and the bearing comes back to the course of 89 degrees. In practice it is easy to keep within about one degree of the course on typical sea kayaking distances.

The GPS allows you to maintain a perfect ferry angle despite changing tidal flows. This is a function that map, compass, tide tables, chart and your brain would be unable to match. Off course it needs to be used sensibly. If you are crossing a channel and expect to be half way across at the turn of the tide, you may as well paddle straight across on a constant bearing and allow yourself to be carried down tide then up tide and these will cancel each other out and you will not waste time ferrying into the tide. Another point is that GPS units can be set to use various Norths such as grid and magnetic. I always set mine to magnetic so that if the GPS fails I can just switch straight back to the compass.

I explained all this to a friend who is very keen on skin on frame kayaks and Greenland paddles. He was rather dismissive of all this technology and wondered what was wrong with a good old compass. However, I am pretty sure the Inuit did not have compasses (not to mention aluminium frames and polymer skins).

PS in response to Cailean's reply.

In May I was fortunate enough to be part of a group that was led out to the Ecrehouse reef which lies 10 km off Jersey in the path of tidal currents that run up to 5 knots.


The leader was a very experienced local paddler who had been out to the reef countless times. He used local knowledge, his experience, compass, map, tide tables and tidal flow charts to take us out by the southerly route above. It was a safe crossing and allowed us to get carried down onto the Ecrehouse. If we had missed it we would have ended up going to England. However, we battled for 2 km more than we had to into a 3.5-5 knot current which was extremely tiring and a couple of paddlers in the group were very nearly exhausted by the crossing. The leader knew I had a GPS and asked how we were doing at the point we changed direction.

If we had done this crossing using the GPS then I would have set a waypoint about 1 km up tide of the Ecrehouse (at our final change of direction on the chart above) and we would have paddled straight to it.

I do think that being able to ferry at just the right angle using a GPS can conserve a groups' energy to leave a reserve for any unexpected tide or wind conditions they might meet later.
Here is a GPS track of a trip to Ghigha. On the way out it was flat calm and slack water. On the way back there was a 2 knot north flowing tide and a force 6 southerly wind. I used the GPS track not to navigate such a short crossing but to adjust the ferry angle. As you can see it was an efficient crossing in somewhat lively conditions!

Monday, November 27, 2006

Photography, is Photoshop a cheat?



This is a nice photo of a summer sunset off Loch Roag in Lewis. It is very much as I remember it but it is actually composed of 2 separate photos which were taken one after the other but with very different exposure settings. One was taken for the light in the foreground and the other was taken for the sunset. I joined them together later using Photoshop. If I had just set the camera to auto, the kayaker would have been a dark silhouette.

Simon Willis has recorded a Podcast with me talking about sea kayaking photography which should be published in the first week of December. The above photo is one that will appear on his website to accompany and illustrate the Podcast.

Some photographers do not like this type of photo, saying they look unnatural. What they really mean is they don't look like the photos they take! The human eye copes with a much greater range of light as it roves round a scene (with the iris altering its aperture as it goes) than a camera which takes a fixed exposure for the whole scene. Film and digital senors are also much less sensitive than the retina. Whatever, I like the technique and it's really just a development of dodging and burning when exposing a print in the darkroom. I did a lot of B+W photography before moving into transparencies but many photographers missed out the darkroom and have spent most of their careers using transparency film which allows for no post exposure manipulation. It was a highly skilled job getting the correct exposure on good old Kodachrome II transparency film with its 25 ASA speed and narrow exposure latitude. Those photographers take a great pride in getting exposure right first time and Photoshop must seem like the spawn of the Devil to them.

I think you can take photography far too seriously. As I said in the podcast to Simon, I am not a forensic photographer recording a crime scene. I am just trying to capture memories and memory is a fleeting and fickle thing.

Sunday, November 26, 2006

Saturday, November 25, 2006

Wanted: Mink Men!


Mink on Bhacsaigh, Loch Roag.

For the attention of non vegan, unemployed sea kayakers! Scottish Natural Heritage seek persons with the following skills:
  • Boat handling skills.
  • Experience with firearms.
  • Ability to walk over moorland between 8-20 kilometres per day.
  • Good knowledge of the Western Isles.
  • Experience of using working dogs.
Successful applicants will take part in the eradication of the mink from the Western Isles. Natives of North America, these relatives of the weasel escaped from fur farms in the 1960's and 70's. They have spread throughout the islands as they are strong swimmers and are ruthless predators of ground nesting birds. A programme of eradication was started in 2001.


Mink trap on Berneray.

I can proudly hold up my head and say that I have played a small but vital part in this public service. During 2004 we were camped on Boreray. In exchange for some fresh water, I did a favour for the island's sole resident Jerry. I transported a dead mink to North Uist so that he could claim his bounty. It was a very stinky minky.


Boreray, sea kayaking paradise.

Imagine you are at the edge of the sea on a day when it is difficult to say where the land ends and the sea begins and where the sea ends and the sky begins. Sea kayaking lets you explore these and your own boundaries and broadens your horizons. Sea kayaking is the new mountaineering.