A perfect day to end up in 2000 Acres of Sky.

On Saturday we paddled to Port Logan, which featured in the BBC series "2000 Acres of Sky". The series was based on a fictional and remote island community called Ronansay which lay off the west coast of Skye.

Port Logan was originally called Port Nessock and in the 17th century attempts were made by the McDouall family to establish it as a ferry port for Ireland. They also built the Port Logan Inn which now makes a fine sea kayaking pub. (See here for what makes a good sea kayaking pub.)

The quay and Port Logan Light were built in 1830 by Colonel Andrew McDouall. The light is a conical stone tower with a platform for a lantern. It is not known when it was last lit but for sometime after that it had a bell, which was rung to guide local boats back in foggy conditions. A decent road to the village was not constructed until the early 20th century, so most of the village's trade and traffic depended upon the sea. A life boat station was built at Port Logan in 1866. It closed in 1932 as the RNLI lifeboat at Portpatrick, 18km to the north west, was motorised by then. The boat house is now the village hall which you can find near the quay.



We set off from Drummore and so had to pass one of the great headlands on mainland Britain. The Mull of Galloway is the most southerly point on Scotland. It juts into the Irish sea separating the Solway Firth from the North Channel between Scotland and Ireland. We were prepared for the strong tides and magnificent caves. What we were not prepared for was the stunning cliff coastline north west to Port Logan.

17/04/2007 lv asked "Do you have a panoramic photo of Port Logan?"

I do but it was shot in pretty flat light so it is not the best. Here it is...



I do not know where you stay but if you get the chance, you should visit Galloway. It is a wonderfully unspoilt region.

What a difference a day makes.

Yesterday we enjoyed sun and light winds rounding a major headland. Today when the clouds cleared and the sun came out, it brought a fresh SE wind. It funneled into the mouth of Loch Fyne in the Firth of Clyde. We paddled out into the middle of the loch where the wind and waves were at their best.



David in the Aleut Sea II



Then we turned downwind for a 6.5km blast to Tarbert with its ice cream parlour and the pub.

All in all, a pretty good weekend

Rainbow rock

Earlier today


A clue to rainbow rock's location. This cave is directly below one of the most prominent lighthouses on the Scottish mainland.

An Orange future for Barra and Vatersay but not for me.

This photo is of red haired, celtic cows on Bagh a Deas on Vatersay, the most southerly of the inhabited isles in the Outer Hebrides. It is especially for Michael, Hayden and Wenley and is one of a series of sea cow photos I am posting on this site.



On sea kayaking trips to the Outer Hebrides I usually take three PAYG SIM cards for O2, Vodaphone and Orange and I usually get mobile phone reception in most places but until now, not on Barra or Vatersay.

However, Orange recently started work constructing mobile phone masts on Bruernish and Bentangaval. It was hoped the network would be available from 09/03/2007. The mast at Bentangaval will also be used for the deployment of services provided by Connected Communities Broadband to create a wireless Internet network on the island.

The future might be Orange for Barra but not for Newton Mearns on the south of Glasgow. On 17/1/2007, as a result of local loop unbundling (LLU), Orange installed their own ADSL broadband equipment to replace equipment they had rented from BT. Since then my broadband has been just about unusable with download speeds of about 100 kbps (instead of the theoretical maximum of 6,500 kbps) and frequent drops of the connection. After much frustration, yesterday I requested my MAC code to transfer to another ISP. I will not be going to one of the free bundles with other services such as Sky satellite TV. I will be happy to pay for a decent reliable service.

Bag, a deer.

Kinloch Castle on Rum was built as a shooting lodge. It is full of stuffed things that once flew, ran, crawled or swam.



Its shooting books record days of hunting. On September the third 1925, Sir George Bullough killed a 7 point stag weighing 14 stone and 4 lbs on Kilmory hill with a 0.303 inch rifle. He was assisted by his stalker MacLeod.

In search of the monkey eating eagle of Rum.

The island of Rum is a rum old place. Most people associate it with the sea eagle but there are other eagles to be found on the island. On one of his trips on his yacht, SY Rhouma, George Bullough visited Japan and became friends with the Emperor. The Emperor gifted him this bronze monkey eating eagle with two matching incense burners, each topped by lesser eagles. George packed them away in a nook somewhere on Rhouma and brought them back to Kinloch Castle as souvenirs of his Far Eastern travels.



They now fight for attention with his other amazing collection of bric-a-brac and gegaws in the castle's Edwardian front room.

PS several people have emailed asking why I have stopped posting about weekend trips. Unfortunately since I spent some time working in the Children's Hospital in Pakistan I have been bothered by recurrent chest infections. I have not been out for three weekends now and I had to cancel a trip to Skye this weekend. So you will just need to put up with shots from the back catalogue for a little longer. :o)

SY Rhouma

George Bullough, who built Kinloch Castle on Rum (or Rhum as he called it), also owned the Clyde built, 221 foot, twin deck, sailing yacht Rhouma. The name is supposed to be the feminine of Rhum. He sailed round the world in Rhouma. During a visit to Japan he became friendly with the Emperor.



He liked to fish for tarpon from the Rhouma and several adorn the walls of the corridors in the castle.



He gave the SY Rhouma to the British government to use as a hospital ship in the Boer War. He also paid for it to staffed by doctors and nurses. Her magnificent sixteen piece dining suite was removed to the castle. You can see the swivel points where the chairs were secured to Rhouma's deck but allowed diners to rotate the chairs for easy entry and exit.



The Rhouma's bell now sits silently on a table in the hall of the castle.

I thought sea kayaking was expensive....