Ardskenish

 Our final day on the island was to be a walking day around Ardskenish, the south-west end of the island. This is a really beautiful and relatively remote area, blasted by the weather off the Atlantic, and made of dunes, beaches and skerries.

 Seals were all over the place in these waters and numerous waders scurried along the beaches feeding.

 The opposite coast of the peninsula backs on to the deep U shaped and sheltered bay of Traigh nam Barc.

The house at Ardskenish sits pretty well in the middle of the peninsula, surrounded by flowering machair teeming with redshank, snipe, oystercatchers,lapwing. ringed plovers, teal, mallard ..... you get the picture. One night during World War II the house was apparently clipped by a low flying plane and became something of a local attraction. It is no longer permanently occupied.

 Some serious work went in to wall building hereabouts, and while they are no longer tended they remain an attractive feature of the landscape.

 The islets and skerries offshore look like they could provide interesting rock-hopping, but that wasn't going to happen today. Next time perhaps.

We lingered a long time before leaving the peninsula behind. It was a superb day.

Roll on our next visit to Colonsay. We won't wait 30 years.

Balnahard

 Less than a kilometre down the coast from Lamalum is the rather splendid beach of Traig Ban at Balnahard. Approaching from the north are some skerries you can work around, depending on the state of the tide, with views back up the Firth of Lorn and to Mull.

 The remnants of the wreck on the beach are of the S.S. Wasa, a wooden steamship from Liverpool that, oddly enough, caught fire. It was under tow but grounded in the bay before being wrecked.

Most of the wreck is, apparently, still underwater a couple of hundred yards offshore.

Despite the wonderfully clear water I couldn't work it out from the surface.
Top 20 beach? Possibly.

Colonsay: Lamalum

Having reached the northern tip of Colonsay, conditions were so benign I was half inclined to continue with a semi-circumnavigation of the island and land at Traig an Tobair Fhuair. However I was paddling solo, hadn't mentioned that as a possible Plan B to the wife and mobile reception was poor, so I stuck with my original plan to return to Scalasaig.

Returning south down the north-east coast the first beach you come to is Lamalum, with views towards Mull to the north... 

... and Scalpay, the Gulf of Coryvreckan and Jura towards the east. On a day like this day it was an absolutely sublime place to be. 

 Behind the beach is a narrow isthmus, Bealach Lamalum, barely 50m across, before the land drops in to the water of the west coast at Poll Ban and views open up down the island's north-west coast.

Being an exposed placed, the beaches inevitably catch a lot of flotsam and jetsam and more than one person has been tempted to create the marine equivalent of a cairn, or maybe it's art-work. Returning to the "best beach" theme of my earlier Colonsay posts, I think this one beats Port a Chapuill on views and setting. 

Chilled out - eventually!

 

This should really be a picture of a ready to go kayak with no kayaker. We all have those days when we forget something, like the VHF for example. I searched all the hatches, dry bags and the cockpit several times. I turned the car inside out, twice. My wife went back to our hotel room, as did I subsequently. Could we find the blasted thing? No. I'd just about given up when I suddenly remembered ..... back at the hotel I'd put it in the hydration pack pocket in the rear of my BA. Argh! An hour or so wasted.

So eventually, off I paddled up the north-east cost of Colonsay. Can you detect my mood from my posture?

 Having paddled about a kilometre north from Scalasaig I had eventually paddled out my mood and was fairly chilled out like these four feral goats, presumed ancestors from goats that wound up on several Scottish islands after the Armada.

 Further up the coast again are the ruins of Riasg Buidhe. An eighth century cross where the stone is described by William Stevenson in 1880 as  "dressed only in front, undressed on the back" was removed from  here in 1870 to Tobar Odhran by Colonsay House. Suffice to say there's Christian symbology on the front and and something rather ruder on the back! The 1841 census has 64 people living here and the village remained occupied to a lesser extent until 1923, when the last inhabitants were re-housed in new houses at Glassard, just north-east of Scalasaig. With that move Colonsay became the first community in Britain where every household had running water and lavatories. The roofs of the houses at Riasg Buidhe were burnt to prevent their reoccupation. A certain Collach, Dr. Roger McNeill, an internationally recognised authority on infectious diseases, particularly tubercolosis, was the prime mover in this achievement. This and more information can be gleaned from Kevin Byrne's excellent book, "Lonely Colonsay, Island at the Edge". 

 Heading north the coastline scenery takes on a certain uniformity with the exception of Eilean Olmsa and the woodlands of  A' Choille Mhor and A'Choille Bheag. Seals, otters and goats abound and there is the chance to spot a goldean eagle. Landing opportunities are limited until you reach the beach at Balnahard or Traigh Ban.

 From Balnahard it is only a short paddle to the cliffs at the north of Colonsay. The fulmars hereabouts were very inquisitive, flying within catching distance of my head.

 On reaching the northern tip, where the tide can really pull you along or push you back, the skerry of Eilean Dubh comes in to view as does the view towards Mull and northern Jura. Views to follow!

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.

"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.

Kiloran Bay, Isle of Colonsay

 Kiloran Bay can catch magnificent surf and, as is often the case in this part of the world, there won't be many of you on or in the water!

If the surf is high then I found the best place to land the kayak was at the southern end of the beach where the stream enters the sea, although with rocks close by and challenging surf, good judgement is needed. If it is too difficult to land then there is a more sheltered north facing beach about 300m west: not too sure how you climb the cliff though! Failing that there is a small south-westerley facing bay round the headland north of Kiloran Bay.

 The bay is backed by an impressive dune face with machair behind, which is managed to provide a foraging area for the rare chough, at their most northerly breeding area in Europe. Corncrakes rattle away nearby while dune gentian and Irish ladies tresses are amongst the rarer flowers in the vicinity. In 1881 a viking ship burial site was found in the dunes. The artefacts can be seen at the National Museum in Edinburgh.  

When on the west coast it is always tempting to "do the sunsets".

I rather like Kiloran Bay.

Thirty Years After

At pretty close to midnight on the 12th August 1981, thirty years ago, Mrs Smith and I met for the first time just on the other side of that headland. We were both Assistant Leaders on a Schools Hebridean Society expedition, her to lead kayaking, me climbing and both with some marine biology and ecology thrown in. My recollection was that the opening greeting was something of a Dr Livingstone / Stanley moment. The island is Colonsay and although we've visited many if not quite all of the other inhabited Hebridean islands since, we had never been back to Colonsay until June this year.  

 The changes have largely been subtle. Certainly part of where we camped is now beach. The island also has this developing whale sculpture. The artist Julian Meredith started this 183m long beast on a raised beach and visitors are invited to continue to fill the outline with stones.

Then there are the beaches...... according to a Scottish Natural Heritage Commissioned Repot No. 048, "The Beaches of the Highlands and Islands of Scotland", four of the top twenty beaches in Scotland are on Colonsay. This is one of them, Kiloran Bay. OK, the report is largely subjective but I could easily add a couple more to the four!

Oh, and guess what we had with us! My objective, perhaps not shared with Mrs Smith, was to kayak from/to the said four beaches. This is Kiloran Bay and I launched and paddled solo here in large surf and significant swell. There are no on the water shots and Mrs Smith stayed in the cottage, so there are no paddling photos from the land either. The kayak is my daughter's Rockpool Isel, which was superb in the very challenging surf but a little cramped for me. Landing was very interesting!