Muck to Eigg

Had a second day roaming Muck: with vivid views & time for relaxed chat. The bright skies & superb visibility are from a stable weather pattern, also bringing fresh North winds. On Thursday we loaded up the kayak & paddled to the East end of Muck, hoping to cross to Eigg. The wind had risen since we'd first looked, so we landed & climbed to a sheltered spot, waiting for it to lessen. Studying the crossing with binoculars convinced us it was still too rough for us & we returned to camp on a headland with fantstic views. The wind veered in the night & we eventually moved the basha to a more sheltered spot to avoid the noise of incessant flapping!

The Small Isles are served by Calmac ferries that take Kayaks for free - perfect for this situation. We were ferried to Eigg where we've spent a couple of days exploring, staying at Jackie & Mick's B&B. The island's celebrating the 10th anniversity of its community buy-out this year. It's also has virtually 100% renewable electricity from hydro, wind & solar, although last year when we visited the diesel generator was back on because of a severe drought. Lots of dramatic landscape to see, much of it volcanic, as with these lava bombs.

Tomorrow the forecast is for less wind & we hope to paddle to the mainland.

Muck

Great weather made crossing to the Isle of Muck a dream, paddling past rafts of Manx Shearwaters that would sometimes take off & fly at great speed, alarmingly close to us, skimming the sea. Last year we saw the burrows on the Rum mountains, where they nest. Having migrated from South America, they take turns parenting for alternate weeks, meanwhile nipping down to the Bay of Biscay to feed. When the young have grown enough, they're abandoned and find their own way to South America!

Muck is a welcoming small Island that we ambled about today, marvelling at its colourful variety and views of Islands, all around, including the Outer Hebrides, right down South to Mingulay. We get tantalising glimpses of small island community life, which appears idyllic today. People are relaxed & friendly.

The Port Mor House Hotel is providing us a luxury break, which is especially welcome because Anne has strained her back, Kayak lifting - it's now getting better.
When we and the weather are good, we hope to contine to Eigg, where a parcel of more maps & some useful bits should await us.

Rounding Ardamurchan point

Yesterday we rounded the feared Ardamurchan Point, in blissfully calm seas. We had lunch drifting up and down beside a little island where the sand eels (and hence fish) apparently flourished. We put out our mackerel line, with its newly acquired mackerel lures and waited hopefully, salivating at the thought of barbequed mackerel for supper......

Final score: Fish 2,Tom and Anne nil. We continued on our way, fish-less, leaving one fishhook embedded in a lobsterpot rope, another in the seaweed.

We camped on the headland a little futher round the coast, where we got a tantalising view of all the small Isles: Eigg, Muck, Rum Canna and Skye. While we had our (fishless) supper, a basking shark and a minke whale fed in the calm waters below.

Context

UK canoeing was popularised in 1865 by John MacGregor with his book "1000 Miles in the Rob Roy Canoe". Canoeists pioneered our NW waters, opening up routes like ours, before pleasure yachts arrived. We've been reading the marvellous "Canoe Boys", describing a 1934 trip like ours by 2 young men from Glasgow tennements with amazingly basic gear. Their trip was celebrated a couple of years ago on TV by Simon Willis, whose website we much admire.

We'd arranged a kayak rendezvous with Simon & Liz on the south Morven shore, but they turned back because of a bad forecast & urgent demands from his imminent guide-book, based on their Gigha to Ullapool trip last year: . Got a great view there of a white-tailed sea-eagle, perched in a shoreline tree.

We're now staying at the Ardnamurchan Campsite & Study Centre, run by Trevor Potts, who's done some amazing journeys including kayaking across the Bering Straight & re-enacting Shakeleton's Antartica to South Georgia epic. Time now to pack up & head round the Ardnamurchan Point, which, with beautiful conditions, shouldn't be epic. Trevor's told us some good fishing spots.

"Exciting" Sailing

From Ininnmore we expected a long haul up the Sound of Mull, with the tide mostly against us. We’d been warned the Sound was a slog.
We stopped off for elevenses in Lochaline which was friendly, with a great shop & cafe. Then a favourable wind got us sailing in clear skies, with a pretty coastline slipping steadily by.

Later, before the narrows, the wind was up to force 5 and we were sometimes surfing the following waves, surrounded by white horses. At the narrows the wind crept up a notch: Anne had just announced 13.4kph from the GPS (against the tide) - our normal paddling speed is 7, when the situation turned from exhilarating to alarming. I needed to pull in our simple spinnaker, so that Anne could turn round & furl it, but was fighting with all my strength, using paddle & rudder to keep the kayak in line with the steepening following sea. Eventually there was brief a moment when I could tug back the sail, but it was determined to billow out sideways & pull us over. Anne had to turn right round to fasten the sail, causing her spray deck to come loose. [we sit in sea-socks as well, which prevent the whole kayak flooding in a capsize].
The strengthening wind had got us into a situation we couldn’t easily back out of.
There were several yachts about, so help was at hand if we had gone in. We’re working on a quick-release so that we can easily lower the sail & stuff it in a bag, should we be in this situation again.
When we’d got it furled, once we had dodged a seaplane & a cruise ship, we soon reached delightful Tobermory, for more shopping & snacks.

After refreshments, the wind had reduced enough for us to cross to Auliston Point so we’re here camped on stones at a pretty, but midgy spot near Oronsay. It’s nearly June & already it never gets fully dark: the dawn chorus was at 3:30, but a confused cuckoo was calling at 1am, when I was still buzzing with excitement.

Our IT equipped kayak

Tom has “retired” but I need to continue running my business while we’re away. My clients know travelling and so will only be accessing emails intermittently, but only a select few know exactly HOW I’m travelling. I suspect P&G’s purchasing department would be rather surprised if they could see where my email about our contract was being sent from!

IT and mobile broadband make this so much more feasible .... Even last year it would have been more difficult. For geeks, I use an small Acer Aspire One, with 16GB solid state memory and an extra large battery. I have a copy of all my work files with me on an 8GB USB key. Mobile broadband is via a vodaphone pay as you go dongle. This has much better coverage in NW Scotland than some of the other networks. While in the kayak, the kit lives in a A4 sized lomo waterproof bag with a sachet of desiccant, enveloped in a steadily increasing layer of clothes as padding.

If blog posts suddenly stop, you’ll know this was inadequate protection!

Lismore

We spend the day in our friends Hugh and Sara's delightful cabin on the island of Lismore, looking up Loch Linne towards Ben Nevis.

We take the opportunity to sort things out and do a few repairs.

My car and house keys turn up. How the normal world fades away when you're on a journey......