Mull

Weather beginning to change, so we start to think about coming home.

Scotland is still wonderful though.

Carsaig

Couple of nights with our friend David at his delightful cottage in Carsaig, with a stunning view over to Jura and a days kayaking with him on mirror calm seas.



The cottage next door is available as a holiday let  Looks wonderful.

Iona

The seas round Iona are a remarkable colour

Staffa

Fufilling a long held dream of Tom, we paddled from Little Colonsay to Staffa and Fingal's cave.

Lovely to be there before the tourist boats.






The wind got up (Force 4) so we put the sail up and headed for Iona, camping on a delightful skerrie off Kintra.

Little Colonsay, Nr Mull

Back to Mallaig, where we bumped into our friends Philip, Monica and David.

The next day we drove down to Mull, and set off to Little Colonsay

Canna

On Tuesday we paddled round the island, 

buying some lobster from a fishing boat on the way back.  It was a little tricky navigating the surf on the way back with a live lobster in my lap, but supper was good!

Canna

We decided that rather than wait for the 2 days of calm non-westerly winds that we'd need to paddle to Canna, we'd take the CalMac.




 In just a few hours we were camped at Tarbert (on Canna), looking back to Rum in the afternoon sunlight

Rum

Hired some bikes and cycled over to Harris bay.

Rum

Paddled from Eigg to Rum.  Three quarters of the way across a head wind got up, and became increasingly strong as we neared the shore.  The last 100m was quite a struggle. After a rest on the beach, we decided to head for Kinloch, rather than go further round the coast.  As the shipping forecast suggested strongish NW winds for the next few days, we ended up spending a very pleasant 3 nights at the campsite here.

A few years ago it was difficult and expensive to stay on Rum, but the area around Kinlock is now run by the  Rum Community Trust, who are very friendly and welcoming.

Eigg

Paddled over from Gorten Sands campsite (v kayak friendly, recommended. Find them at PH39 4NS) just north of Arisaig to one of our favorite islands: Eigg. We camped on the west side, looking over gleaming white sands to our next destination: Rum.  The water wasn't anything like as warm as it looked, so we weren't tempted to join the 2 hardy swimmers who were camping a few hundred yards along the beach.

Arisaig

a few days before we set out for scotland, we realised that our friend Dave (and follower of this blog) was going to be in Arisaig at the same time as us.  He's just bought a feathercraft K2 on ebay (a fantastic bargain: virtually unused and about 25% of the price of a new one), so we met up for a a paddle together.

2 K2's do kind of monopolise the passing place on a single track road!