South East Colonsay

 Leaving "her outdoors" on Oransay, I paddled on out of the Strand and up the south east coast of Colonsay.

 Through Port a' Chapuill to... 

 ... Cable Bay. The beach here is "compact" but with a view down to the Sound of Islay and the Paps of Jura. Port a' Chapuill and Cable Bay are counted as seperate beaches in the SNH top 20. Given their close proximity I struggle with this when the whole of Oransay is counted as a single unit! Cable Bay as a top 20? Possibly. Port a'Chapuill on its own? Not in my book! But then it is all rather subjective anyway.

 Interestingly, a proposal has recently (spring 2011) been put forward to place a salmon farm off Cable Bay / Port a' Chapuill. Personally I hope it doesn't proceed. It's very pleasant to kayak somewhere off the west coast without the infernal things. 

 Just around the corner from Cable Bay is Meall an Arbhair, a pleasant sheltered spot with two entances to the shallow bay and otters chilling out.

 

 Rubha Dubh is a very low lying headland. Beyond is Loch Staosnaig otherwise known as Queen's Bay, on account of HMY Brittania regularly mooring up here for the night when HM was doing her holiday tour around Scotland.

 Views to the northeast include the northern end of Jura, the mouth of Corryvreckan and the rounded lump aka Scarp.

 

Meanwhile the tide was going out and I needed to get back to Oransay sharpish to collect "her outdoors" and then paddle back to the road's end at Garvard otherwise there would be a long trolley haul.

Oransay Priory

 Oransay Priory was founded around 1350 as an Augustine monastary but was reported as being in ruins by 1623. The current owners of Oransay have done much to improve the island and this includes moving the superb collection of carved mediavel grave stones in to a recently roofed area of the priory to protect them from the elements. 

OK, not part of the priory proper, but I like this shot of the nearby walls with the three baby wrens!

Again, not  a carving but a fascinating natural detail of one of the stones in the priory wall.

All photos on this page by Angela Smith

Oransay

 Our first trip to Oransay was on foot. Having waited for the tide to recede we crossed the Strand, walked the road to the priory then on to the machair. Waders, corncrake and geese abound. Several areas of the island, including some of the beaches, obviously held large numbers of ground nesting birds and we did the sensible thing and avoided them.

 This isolated shelter on the south west coast had a superb view towards some offshore skerries and islands and out in to the Atlantic.

 Colonsay and Oransay were occupied in the Mesolithic period. On Oransay this is evidenced by several shell middens such as the one above, near Seal Cottage.

On the east coast the view opens up towards Jura and Islay. Jura has three of the SNH "top twenty" beaches.

 One of the Jura paps.

When we crossed the Strand to Oransay it was pretty grey and wet but upon our return the weather had brightened up and better displayed the brilliance of the place.

All photos by Angela Smith

"Do the Strand"

With apologies to all those who are old enough to know of the avant garde hip chic of 1973....

There are two ways to "Do the Strand".

You can walk across when the tide is out

Or you can paddle across when the tide is in

Of course if you paddle across, you could do it on a table..... sorry! 1973 and all that.

This day we paddled, in kayaks, and the photograph is historic as this is the first time that Angela has been in a kayak on the sea since we were last on Colonsay thity years ago.

 The Strand we are really talking about here is the one between Colonsay and Oransay. The latter island is regarded by the authors of the SNH report referred to in my earlier Colonsay blog as one of the four top twenty beaches, although calling a whole, fairly large island "a beach" is using a bit of licence. There are many fine beaches on the island, which is leased to the RSPB by its American owner. There are also the remains of a rather old priory. 

And the rather nice beach we landed on.