Looking back to Gigha and Cara

With the dramatic Mull of Cara behind us, Douglas and I paddled up the east coast of Cara past Aird Fhada (Long Point) with a view up the ahead to Cara House.  The conditions were very still, flat calm water and without a breath of wind.  We knew however that this would be the last day of calm; the afternoon and evening were set to bring strengthening winds and rain as an Atlantic low pressure system approached to displace the high pressure which had given us such great paddling conditions.

We bid the Brownie a good day as we passed Cara House and headed north to pass Gigalum Island and enjoy another exploration.....

..of the skerries and channels near to Port an Sgiathain (Port of the Wing).

The water here is crystal clear - the sensation of gliding over the sea bed is one which never fails to  delight.

We turned in to land at the small white sand beach of Port an Sgiathain to take second breakfast, and also to check the ferry timetable between Gigha and Tayinloan. 

We didn't intend to take the ferry, but to coordinate our arrival at Tayinloan with the departure of the ferry on one of her crossings to Gigha - that way we'd have plenty of time to use the ferry slip in order to land and clear our boats away from the slipway.

As it happened, the best way to achieve this was to slow down our crossing of the Sound of Gigha - which suited the mood of the day perfectly.  We paddled slowly, just chatting and savouring the relaxed rhythm.  Over our right shoulder, the island of Cara gradually grew smaller, but this small island has a big place in our memory-bank of sea kayaking adventures.  It was my first time visiting Gigha and Cara - it won't be my last.

Meanwhile, over our left shoulder MV Loch Ranza was rapidly overhauling us on her way to Tayinloan.  We were crossing well to the south of her track in the shallowest part of the Sound of Gigha, so we were sure we'd not inconvenience her in any way.  Beyond again, a hint of brightness was speckling the Jura hills - a destination discussed for future trips!

We arrived off the ferry slipway as MV Loch Ranza completed loading for her return journey to Gigha.  We'd met with her several times during our journey, and once again there was a cheery wave from the wheelhouse as she departed.  Ferries are such a big part of the fabric of the marginal places around Scotland's west coast, Western and Northern Isles - the service they provide crucial to sustaining communities and supporting both business and tourism; they and their crews are a genuine national treasure.

With a full hour to move our boats off the slipway we could afford to relax and stroll up to the car park to retrieve our trollies.  It was nearly the end of another small adventure, but not quite.

We both had a long drive ahead of us and so decided to refuel and refresh at Big Jessie's Tearoom.  We can both heartily recommend the Wild Boar & Chorizo Burgers; a tasty and locally sourced treat!  Douglas was driving almost to Scotland's south westerly point (but not in a direct line due to the hugely indented nature of the coast) while my journey home would take me to the north east of the country.  We arrived at our respective destinations some hours later, but within ten minutes of each other.

Now, where next?!

Capra and the Mull of Cara

The final day of our trip around Gigha and Cara dawned overcast but dry.  In contrast to the previous morning, the overnight breeze had kept the tents dry so we were able to strike camp as soon as we'd had breakfast.  We intended to circumnavigate Cara before crossing back to Gigha, then making the crossing back to Tayinloan to complete our trip.

Turning the north tip of Cara, we started down the west coast of the island.  This place has a reputation for very rough water but the calm conditions continued and we had a quiet paddle through the reefs......

...under the watchful, impassive and unblinking gaze of one of the resident herds of goats.  The poet Norman MacCaig seemed to capture the essence of these characterful animals in his poem simply entitled "Goat" :

The goat with amber dumb-bells in his eyes,

The blase lecher, inquisitive as sin,

White sarcasm walking, proof against surprise,

The nothing like him goat, goat-in-itself,

Idea of goatishness made flesh, pure essence

In idle masquerade on a rocky shelf - 

Hangs upside down from the lushest grass to twitch

A shrivelled blade from the cliff's barren chest,

And holds the grass well lost; the narrowest niche

Is frame for the devil's face; the steepest thatch

Of barn or byre is pavement to his foot;

The last, loved rose a prisoner to his snatch;

And the man in his man-ness, passing feels suddenly

Hypocrite found out, hearing behind him that

Vulgar vibrato, thin derisive me-eh.

Past the reefs at the north of Cara the west coast becomes increasingly steep and there are no landings.  The cliffs remain relatively low, but as the south west corner is turned there's a great sight ahead......

...as the sliced-off face of the Mull of Cara comes into view.  Given that the remainder of Cara is quite low-lying, the sudden appearance of the Mull makes it appear much higher than it's 50 metres.

In 1756 the whole face of the Mull of Cara collapsed and a tidal wave swept around the island destroying houses on Cara, Gigha, Kintyre and West Loch Tarbert.  Given the size of the rockfall, it's probable that the collapse was an effect of a much larger event rather than the cause of all the destruction.  Theories include a sub-sea earthquake and a meteor strike, but we'll really never know.

The Mull of Cara is not often a quiet place. being exposed to wind and swell from most directions and is subject to strong tidal movement.  We were delighted to find absolutely calm conditions and made the most of the opportunity to get close in to the base of the cliff.

As we paddled around, the extent of the headland and the scale of the place became apparent.....

There's another herd of goats at the southern tip of the island -  here Douglas is assessing the options for Goat Bhuna on a future trip :o)

A last look back at this striking place before we turned the corner to head up the east coast of Cara - it's a really impressive place to sea kayak.

From farther up the east coast, only the hill of the Brownie's Chair is a clue to the dramatic rock architecture.

"Flickering embers go higher and higher....."

Once we'd landed and changed from our paddling clothes we decided to take a stroll inland to look at Cara House.

Built in about 1733, Cara House was the residence of the tacksman who held the island who held the island from its proprietors, the MacDonalds of Largie. A "tacksman" was essentially a leaseholder who could sub-let land which he leased from the land owner and this was a common form of land holding at the time.  The house has been renovated and is used as a holiday home by the family who now own Cara.

A large, imposing though not necessarily attractive building, Cara House is two stories with an attic.....

...where the Brownie's room is situated.  It's said that there is often twinkling light seen from this attic and noises heard from within the house.

A little to the east of Cara House lies a ruined chapel.  Hamish Haswell-Smith in his indispensable "The Scottish Islands" states that the chapel is the ruin behind the house (to the west) "which could easily be be mistaken at first for a sheep pen", but from what we could see and from the evidence on the Ordnance Survey map, it seems that the chapel is the ruin to the east.

Dedicated to St Fionnlugh, the chapel probably dates from the late Middle Ages but had ceased to be used for ecclesiastical purposes by the 1770's.

The inshot splayed windows are quite well preserved and dressed with sandstone - similar to the dressing on sites such as Skipness Chapel, though much simpler here.

A grey stone slab propped against the ruin looks to have been shaped for insertion into the ground and may well have been a grave-marker.

On the east side of Cara is a bay called Port na Cille (Port of the (monks) cell) - it's a good landing place and would probably have been the means of access to and from Cara for the monks.

Returning to our camp, we cooked and ate our meal and then lit our fire.  We had plenty of dry driftwood and a quantity of seasoned logs, and used the base of a broken creel washed up on the shore as a windbreak from the breeze.

Sitting back in our camp chairs, we admired a dome of stars washed with a swathe of the Milky Way, spotting several satellites moving across the sky.  Frothing Sports Recovery drinks in hand, we reflected on how fortunate we are to be able to experience all that we had on this and so many other days.

As the fire developed, so did the heat -  "flickering embers going higher and higher" as Paul McCartney wrote nearby.  In fact, of all the fires we've enjoyed, this one was one of the smaller examples, but gave a heat out of all proportion to it's size.  More thermonuclear device than campfire, it was so hot that it changed the properties of the bottom part of Douglas' trouser legs!

We had to wait quite a while for the fire to burn down enough to cook our Sweet Potato and Potato The recipe is simple enough - wrap in strong foil, bake in the embers at "Log Mark 6" for about 40 minutes and serve with a little butter and salt on one of the remaining split logs - more holz cuisine than haute cuisine!

Great expectations dashed on Gigha

In comparison to the wonderful west coast of Gigha, I found the north-east coast a bit lacking, though Douglas captured some nice images. Open bays and fish farms charaterise the paddling until Ardminish Point is reach, where interest really picks up again.

In order to reach the focus of our immediate interest we needed to adhere to the Calmac timetable, so that we didn't cross ahead of the soon-to-depart ferry MV Loch Ranza.

We got a cheery wave from the bridge as the Loch Ranza headed off on her crossing to Tayinloan....

...and once she was clear we crossed astern of her and headed across Ardminish Bay, stomachs fairly rumbling.......

..towards The Boathouse cafe bar.  Douglas had been regaling me with tales of how good the seafood was, and in particular the lobsters for which Gigha is renowned.  As we approached, we could see that the lights were on and the door open...we were virtually salivating at the thought of a freshly cooked lobster, perhaps accompanied by  a chilled sports recovery drink.  We were able to paddle right up to the door of the place and land on a small beach of white sand - this was perfect!

Oh no!

We'd missed the season by just one single day; the owners had closed up and gone on holiday, leaving the maintenance crew sprucing up the decking and patio area. Somehow our wraps, humous and cheese weren't quite compensation, so we also consoled ourselves with a small Jura to deaden the disappointment......

...and after eating paddled on south, thankful that we had an evening meal to cook at our camp.  The group of tiny skerries at Port an Sgiathan (Port of the Shield, or Wing) gave some beautiful paddling in clear, shallow water.

Our passage was watched by a couple of curious locals; we tried hard to put thoughts of Gigha steak firmly from our minds!.....

...concentrating instead on the seabed beneath our kayaks (hoping not to spot a lobster scuttling away!)

Soon enough the light breeze pushed us across the channel and back to our camp on Cara, where we of course repeated the correct form of address to the Brownie.

The previous evening a stunning moonrise had marked what we took as the Brownie's blessing; this evening no sooner had we landed than a shaft of brilliant sunlight broke through the clouds and lit up the beach and our boats.

It was the only sunlight we'd seen all day and shone in a direct line across the beach, our boats and over to the Kintyre shore - surely the Brownie's approval?!

Experiences you just can't buy, and one which you can...

We woke to a cool and overcast morning, the grass and our tents soaked by overnight dew.  Packing away a wet tent is never much fun but we were spared this task as we planned to circumnavigate Gigha during the day and return to Cara to camp for a second night.

In contrast to the previous afternoon when we'd paddled in short sleeve shirts, the chill in the morning air required rather warmer clothing, added to which our route would take us up the exposed west coast of Gigha which has limited landing opportunities for much of the way.

We didn't have to move the boats far to launch; high water coincided neatly with the times we expected to both land and launch at Cara, and there's the added factor of the area being at the edge of the influence of an amphidromic point which lies between Islay and the Mull of Kintyre, so although tides here run quite strongly across the shallow water, the tidal range at Springs is only about 1 metre.  The physics of amphidromes is complex, but the physics of only having to move our boats a couple of metres up and down the beach was a concept we could both understand and appreciate!

We crossed back to Gigha, hopeful that the cloud would break a little and provide us with some of the tremendous lighting of aquamarine water over white sand which so characterises Hebridean sea kayaking.  It wasn't to be unfortunately, but at least we could see Gigha, which hadn't been the case the previous day!

Even in the cloudy conditions there were some lovely colours in the water.  We set out on our clockwise circumnavigation of Gigha at Grob Bagh at the south westerly tip of the island. There are many ways to circumnavigate an island; we're of the opinion that paddling headland to headland to get around quickly misses out on most of the best paddling on offer - we intended to go close in and investigate every bay and feature possible.

There was plenty of wildlife interest on the west coast of Gigha - waders including Curlew, Redshank, Turnstone and the noisy and conspicuous Oystercatcher (Haematopus ostralegus) were numerous and quite approachable. The white collar on the left hand of these two birds is found on adults outside the breeding season, a completely black head and neck is a bird in breeding plumage.  At this time of year the birds are changing plumage so there's a mix.

Oystercatchers are fascinating and characterful birds - their displays and social interaction enliven the coastline and also farther inland as they are increasingly breeding on farmland well away from the coast.  The bright orange bill is a distinctive feature, is the heaviest bill of any wader, and occurs in different shapes according to the bird's diet.  The three main types are a blunt "hammering" bill which is found in birds eating mussels and other shellfish by smashing them open, a sharper "stabbing" bill found in birds eating shellfish by stabbing the bill between the valves of the shell, and the sharpest "tweezer" type bill which is found in birds eating worms and other invertebrates.  Although a blurred image, it looks that the two birds pictured above have the "stabbing" type bill.

These differences are known as resource polymorphism and occurs in other species, but the Oystercatcher takes it to a different level by being able to change its bill type to take advantage of a locational/seasonal resource or as a response to an enforced change of diet; for example when a bird which might normally eat shellfish moves inland; there's also some evidence that individual birds may change from one behaviour to another over a period of years.  They are able to do this because their bill grows at an incredibly fast rate of 0.4mm per day - to put that into context, it's three times faster than the growth rate of your fingernails.  This growth rate means that an individual bird can completely change its bill shape in about 10 days!  Superimposed onto the resource polymorphism is a type of sexual dimorphism; females have longer and heavier bills than males which gives them a feeding advantage and enables males and females to take  different prey items within a small area.

Oystercatchers breeding inland (and therefore likely to be eating worms and invertebrates during the breeding season) abandon their chicks at fledging, leaving them to make their own way to the coast and learn feeding strategies from other Oystercatchers; those birds specialising as "hammerers" may be in association with their youngsters for several months as the chicks learn the specialised techniques required for this sort of feeding.  They have plenty of time to learn as the oldest recorded Oystercatcher lived 40 years!  Truly remarkable birds and all the better for being so easily observed around the coast.

As we watched the birds, we were ourselves observed curiously......

...by Common Seals which were occupying all the small bays of the west coast of Gigha.  Tellingly, we saw not a single seal on the east coast of the island where there are fish farms.

We were surprised to see a number of Otters in close proximity to the seals - Douglas managed a photograph which shows both species in the same image.  We'd previously thought that Otters avoid areas with numbers of seals, but certainly on Gigha this isn't the case.  We saw a total of nine Otters along the west coast of the island; a really high density.  It's always a special experience to be close to a wild Otter behaving perfectly naturally, and one that just can't be bought "off the shelf"!

The west coast of Gigha is sparsely populated and is a rugged mix of rocky shore, cliffs and occasional inlets.  Wherever these inlets are usable there's activity and a long tradition of use.  The tiny bay of Port na Cathrach (Port of the chair-place) has bait holes for fishing carved into the rocks; perhaps a hint to the origin of the Gaelic name?

Fishing activity continues to the present; the creel boat "Jewel" was lying at the stone built pier.  A newcomer to this coast, her identification number BF 42 indicates a registry at Banff on the Moray Firth, she seems to have operated from Gardenstown until at least 2010.  These small creelers are well adapted to fishing for crabs, lobsters and Langoustines on rocky coasts; at 5.9 metres long she's barely longer than our kayaks and can operate in close inshore.

We took a detour out from Gigha to circumnavigate the small island of Craro (two circumnavigations in a day!).  The island, currently owned by Mr Don Dennis who runs a successful floral essence business and owns Achamore House on Gigha is, or was, for sale.  Ownership of Craro Island comes complete with the title "Baron of Gigha" (Mr Dennis described this a "a bit of a hoot") but there are some challenges for potential purchasers....

The island is barely 8 acres, comprises mostly rock and has almost no flat ground.  There's no obvious source of fresh water, it has noisy inhabitants in the form of gulls and has no easy landing place.

Apart from these minor points, it's perfect and after all does come with the opportunity to use a title - an experience you can buy off the shelf!

Arrival on Cara - diligence, deference and the Brownie's blessing

We were pleased to see first the skerries of Sgeir Gigalum, then the rocky shape of Gigalum Island appear through the mist.  Such is the distorting effect of mist on the eye that what I originally took to be a large island with trees on it turned out to be a small skerry; the "trees" actually Cormorants standing on the rock!  Although we'd been diligent in our navigation, it's always good to gain a positive confirmation of position in the form of solid objects when paddling in thick fog.  We again spoke to MV Loch Ranza on VHF to advise him that we were safely on the Gigha side of the Sound, and wouldn't be crossing back that day.

There was a clearance in the visibility as we crossed from Gigalum Island to the southern tip of Gigha and we were hopeful that the sun would burn away the mist, but it soon closed back in and we were plunged back into a ghostly world.

We had one more short crossing to make in order to reach our planned campsite, less than 1.5 kilometres but there was just a grey wall to be seen.  A line of skerries provided a useful handrail as we approached...

...a sandy beach with a ruined croft on the island of Cara.  It was clear that the late afternoon sun wouldn't be burning off the mist as we picked our way carefully through skerries and rocks towards the beach.......

...which was occupied by some of Cara's resident goats.  They seemed somewhat startled to see us emerge from the mist!

Goats aren't the only residents of Cara though.  Cara House is occasionally occupied by the island's human owners and permanently occupied by a mischievous spirit - The Brownie of Cara.  Said to be the ghost of a murdered MacDonald (naturally, the story claims that the perpetrator was a Campbell!), the Brownie is well established in folklore and occupies an attic room in Cara House from where strange goings-on are often reported.  By turns helpful and destructive, the Brownie deals fairly with those who show him proper respect.

Tradition has it that the Laird and the Minister have always doffed their hats to the Brownie when stepping ashore, and so should everyone else.  We're both traditionalists and observed this deference not once but twice; as our keels touched the sand and as we stepped ashore.  We both said in clear voices "Good evening Mr Brownie" and asked for his hospitality - you can't be too careful, tales are legion of disappearing boats, equipment and even the odd bottle of whisky on Cara if the greeting is deemed inappropriate!

We camped on short turf above the shore and then moved down to the beach itself to light our camp fire, for which we'd brought some seasoned logs - in late summer and autumn most of the driftwood has already been collected.  It was disappointing to see a fire ring burned into the sandy turf nearby; unnecessary damage when a fire can be lit just as easily below the high water mark - we feel sure that the Brownie would have taken a view on this damage to his island!

During the evening colder air dissipated the mist and a stunning sky full of stars emerged, a swathe of the Milky Way arching over Cara. We had our Sweet Potatoes just about ready from the embers and were enjoying a container of frothing sports recovery drink.  We felt that life was pretty good.....

...when the moon rose over the Kintyre peninsula in one of the most beautiful moonrises either of us have witnessed.  Huge due to atmospheric refraction and a striking, vivid orange colour - this was no ordinary moonrise and we turned our chairs from the fire to watch as it progressed higher.  A path of orange, then golden light spread across the glassy water of the Sound of Gigha as the moon gained altitude, dimming the stars as its light intensified - what a sight!

"Red moons" are occasionally seen as the effect of lunar eclipse or smoke in the atmosphere to our neolithic and later forbears could be seen as good or bad omens.  We felt that this was indeed a good omen, and maybe just the blessing of the Brownie....