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?!

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?!

A miller's tale on the west coast of Gigha

We continued northwards along Gigha's wild west coast, paddling along low cliffs for several kilometres - and seeing yet more Otters on the way.  Our stomachs were reminding us that it was some time since breakfast, so we were pleased to reach the tiny bay of Port an Duin (Port of the Fort) which is sheltered behind an equally tiny island.

We landed on the slippery, weed covered rocks and walked carefully up to the dry flat boulder on the left of this image to take first luncheon of wraps, houmous, cheese and grapes with a welcome mug of coffee.

The bay contains a former mill and millers house close to the shore. There are few burns (streams) on Gigha and even where they occur they're insubstantial things which probably dry up in dry spells.  This mill appears to have been supplied by a lade which must have been dug from the nearby Mill Loch as there loch has no natural outlet to the west.

When the mill was operating Port an Duin and nearby Ardailly must have been one of the centres of Gigha society - much of the barley and oats produced on this fertile island would have been milled here.

The mill itself was a two storey building with an attic and had a smaller building joined to it at right angles, the miller's house was separate.

The final run of the lade, made of cast iron, is still in place and feeds the top of a 16 foot (4.9 metre) diameter wheel, also made of cast iron.  The wheel was originally black in colour and is of an overshot design.  "Overshot" means that the water enters the wheel at the top, rather than "undershot" where the base of the wheel is placed in the mill-race or lade to provide the power.

Overshot wheels were a later innovation in milling technology and were more than twice as efficient as undershot wheels.  There was a problem however if a miller wished to convert from one to the other - the overshot design reverses the rotation of the wheel compared to the undershot version, so all the machinery would also need to be reversed.  Careful siting of the mill was required too, with an overshot design the mill couldn't simply be placed next to the mill-race with the wheel dipping in; the water had to be led to the top of the wheel.  Given all this, it seems that Ardailly Mill was designed from the outset as an overshot mill.

Having "mulled all this over" we set out again to paddle to the north west corner of Gigha, where the map promised a treat in store - a tombolo beach connecting Eilean Garbh (Rough Island) with the north of Gigha.

Landing at the southern beach in Bagh Rubha Ruaidh (Red Point Bay) on white sand, we set out for a short exploration.  The southern beach is beautiful......

....but if anything the beach facing north is even more so - a sweep of white sand backed by marram grass.

Looking eastwards towards the very north tip of Gigha, there's another couple of small white sand beaches.  The only thing our trip had lacked was bright sunshine (under which most of Scotland was basking!) which would have transformed the scene to a dazzling array of colour, but we weren't complaining.....

These beaches are justifiably popular and get plenty of visitors through the summer, so we weren't surprised at the lack of driftwood on the tideline.  We felt that there might be some where the south beach meets Eilean Garbh though, as it was open to the prevailing wind and quite rough and rocky.

So it proved, we filled two Indispensable Kayak Expedition Accessory bags with driftwood to supplement the logs we'd left at our camp on Cara, easily fitting these in the hatches of our boats.

The north coast of Eilean Garbh a wild place with granite outcrops falling straight into the sea.  Given its exposure to Atlantic swell it must be a most impressive place in heavy weather.  We'd taken advantage of the unusually calm conditions created by several days of light winds both locally and farther out in the Atlantic to enjoy Gigha's west coast in calm conditions.  Douglas has paddled here in less settled weather and rates it as one of the roughest places he's enjoyed.

We passed by the northern tombolo beach......

...and paused before heading down the east coast to look at the Paps of Jura which were just becoming visible through the cloud.  A rumble of diesel engines in the calm air announced the appearance of MV Finlaggan on her route from Islay to Kennacraig in Kintyre.

Our stomachs were also rumbling (again) - but we had a plan.....

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!