Bass rock, Farne Islands and Loch Morar sea kayaking

  Bass Rock lies just off North Berwick and is home to largest single colony of Gannets in the world. Around 150,000 flock to the island to breed each year and the island often appears white from a distance with the sheer number of birds (and their droppings!).
 The island is a classic sea kayak venue and with Gordon's parents living nearby, it was an obvious traget for us to explore a location further from home.
 After a long drive down a chippy and an Irn Bru saw us right and we paddled out in big seas and high winds to Bass Rock. Nearing the Island the familar stench of ammonia rich bird droppings hit our nostrils, breakers crashed against the cliffs, and the irregular Clapotis kept us on our toes whilst thousands of Gannets soared above us, sometimes diving from the cliff to splash down close to us in the water. We managed to find a rest spot in the lee on the rollers just around the North side of the island to recoup before we set off to surf down down wind, using the waves to aid our return.

 In our little eddy a group of young seals took an interest in us, gradually sneaking closer and closer, swimming just inches underneath our kayaks, visible in the clear waters. Heading off into the swell one of the pups started following us, often popping up just behind or infront, sometimes nudging our kayaks as we surfed down wind. Occasionally mid-surf, i would glance down to see him matching my speed and course, just inches below the surface.

 Eventually we made it back to North Berwick where the pup gave up the chase in the shallower waters of the beach.
 A warm home cooked meal and beer awaited us at Gordons parents house. Something i was incredibly grateful for!

Bass rock barely visible behing the rollers

The next day say us driving just across the boarder to explore the Farne Islands off the coast of Northumberland. This group of islands owned and maintained by the national trust is home to around 290 species of nesting birds throughout the summer, most of which had begun their long journeys south, to be replaced by the largest colony of Grey Seals in the UK. Around 6000 head to the island to mate each year and along several of the beaches sand could not be seen for the writhing mass of Seals and their pups.

Launching from Bamburgh

Inquisitive Seals

Longstone Lighthouse

 

 Fast flowing tides and powerful races gave exciting paddling, with large standing waves forming amongst some of the outer islands.
 Stunning scenery and incredible wildlife, combined with the challenging water definately made this one of the best locations i have paddled!
After a stop back at Gordons parents again for dinner we drove back to Aviemore so Gordon could work the following day.

 Me and Greg weren't working, so we hatched a plan to paddle from Mallaig to Tarbet bay, where a friend of Greg's, Tom, works as a gillie on the estate there. The estate, owned by Cameron Macintosh, has a small bothy/bunkhouse, complete with toilet, showever and running water. This converted church had been run by a previous gillie of the estate, Frank. When Frank retired Cameron allowed him to stay in his house and maintain the bothy for travellers to the area. A real character and a man never short of a story, Frank left an impression on Greg when he had stayed there previously, as he seemed to with all visitors to the bothy. I was eager to meet the man who had left such an imprint on my friend, however it was sadly not meant to be as Frank has passed away just under a month before. His legacy will definately live on in the memory of all who met him.

Franks Bothy

 Winds gusting in excess of force 7 made hard going and it took us around an extra two hours to make the relatively short paddle to Tarbet, however Tom was waiting and gave us gifts of sausages, made from the recently slaughtered pigs that were reared in the bay. About as organic and free range as it gets anywhere in the world!
 After a shower and some dinner we shared a beer and dram with another Tom, who had come for some work experience the month before, and arranged a lift over the hill on the quad bike to Loch Morar the next day.
 Loading the kayaks on to the quads small trailor and the lift over the steep, rough track certainly added to the sense of adventure on this trip!

 
 Loch Morar is the fifth largest loch in Scotland and the deepest body of fresh water in the British Isles. It's even got it's own monster, affectionately known as Morag! It's beautiful scenerey and collection of small islands at the east end of the loch give an excellent canoe or sea kayak expedition.
 We were hoping that the wind from the previous day would help us along as we paddled down the Loch, but unfortunately it had died off, contrary to the forcast.

  After paddling down the loch we had to portage the river that flows out of the loch and into the sea at Morar, a pretty gruelling experience with loaded sea kayaks. Putting on the other side was a pleasant experience however and the next stretch down to Arisaig provided beautiful white sandy beaches and interesting paddling amongst the skerries.

 A quick hitch hike for me to retrieve the car and once again we headed home after another real sea kayak adventure.

Quick release contact tow for sea kayaking

 Contact tow systems for sea kayaking are nothing new, and some form of contact tow is essential for situations where you may need to get a person, or boat out of trouble quickly.
 The issue with many tow systems around is that they have not been easily releasable, or at least not under load, and if you suddenly find yourself in trouble whilst attempting a rescue then you would be left with no way to release the tow.
 My friend Greg was recently shown a system by Giles Hartley, who had adapted a system shown to him by Nigel Dennis, whom he works for in North Wales. The system involved a plastic clip, whilst i believe Nigel's system incorporated a buckle similar to that used on waist mounted tows. Nigels system seems (although i haven't seen it) bulky, whilst Giles' buckle is potentially not as strong and possibly not as easy to release (again i haven't seen it in the flesh so could be wrong).
 Greg, being as bright as he is, spotted the "Sea to Summit Accessory Straps" in Ellis Brigham and decided he would try and create a releaseable system of his own.
 This involved using two sailing snap hooks, bought from a chandlery, and cutting the strap. After he made his i saw it and we chatted over the ability to release it under load and decided to drill a small hole in the buckle to add 3mm cord to make it easier to grab and pull to release.
 I then purchased my own items to make a system and this is what i came up with:



My quick-release contact tow.

My tow is very similar to Gregs, but i bought a 1m long strap, which seems a good length and is still rated to 125kg, so should be fairly solid!. I also used a thinner strap. I think this makes it just a bit subtler and slimmer on your deck. I only had to cut the strap once, about 30-35cm from the buckle. But this may vary boat to boat. I'd advise tying the first hook clip on first, then trimming it to length so the bukle sits fairly central on your deck. I decided to leave a bit more tail than Greg had, to potentially extend the tow slighlty to either fit wider hulled boats, or position the boat out of way of paddling whilst towing.

 

 

 

The snap hooks are of nose-less design and are the smallest size i could find. This keeps them slimline and prevents snagging. They are attached with a re-threaded over hand knot.

 The buckle is quite small on mine, so i had to take care when drilling, but a 3.5mm drill bit on slow revs did the job well. I then threaded a piece of 3mm cord through the hole, tied in a small loop with a simple over hand, it gives a good toggle to grab and having been tested it works well even in rough conditions and under load.

So there you have it! Like all things, it's not perfect and me and Greg have already discussed how we would improve it. I'd be tempted to make another with the tadaptations we have discussed, but for now i'll continue to use mine and perhaps make another in the future.

 If anyone's interested in having one made for them, then drop me a line.



As a side note: We have also used this to raft together. Even in quite big seas you can pull along side each other, clip under deck lines take up any slack and then you are rafted hands free and quick releasable if needs be! pretty handy for navigation and sorting kit out.

Return to the North

My return to Scotland was pretty hectic to say the least! After a long drive back to Aviemore i attended the Reel Rock Film Tour 2013 premier at the Macdonald resort. The following day saw me scouting out places to live for the winter (and luckily finding one!) having had the place i was going to move into unfortunately fall through whilst i was away in the south. The next day it was the Wilderness Scotland end of season BBQ, during which i recieved a call for a last minute days work on sunday.
A 5 30 am start Saturday morning saw me driving over to the Ben Nevis car park for a charity walk provided by Ptarmigan Events. It was a beautiful day with good temperature for a long walk and stunning views and despite it being late in the season, the summit was a busy place again.

 
The influx of visitors that the highest mountain in Britain recieves unfortunately means that a large amount of litter accumulates throughout the season. On Saturday an event was also taking place named "the real 3 peaks challenge". This event saw volunteers from casual walkers to mountain proffessionals scouring the hillside removing litter ranging from chocolate bar wrappers, to broken bottles and even clothing and boots! Whilst i'm 100% behind people going out to enjoy our british mountains, there definately needs to be a paradigm shift in education and attitude toward litter in our wild places.

Rich Pyne, litter pick organiser, picking litter!

 

After a good day on the Ben, a 3 hour drive saw me once again in Torridon. The Torridon walking festival is a relatively new event, with big potential, organised by the Torridon Hotel. Over the weekend guided walks and boat trips took place, exploring the unique and incredible area. The day provided a contrast to the previous days event and was, as always, a priviledge to lead a group in one of my favourite areas in the UK.

The Team on the Summit of Ruadh Stac Mor - the highest peak of Beinn Eighe

South

With things very quiet on the freelance front through end of Sep and start of Oct, i headed south to see my family for a few weeks.
With them living not far from Dartmoor and Exmoor it was a great opportunity to explore some of the mountain biking of the area.
The quantock hills offered beautiful views of the surrounding area, looking out to Wales and further south over Exmoor.

 

The riding there is brilliant rocky forestry track, however, if you are looking for sometinhg harder, over at Triscombe Stone there are at least 30 fairly well contructed down-hill trails, ranging from fast and flowy to big a scary!
I also managed to head over to the trail centre at Haldon Forest, just north of Exeter. This has several long trails of blue and red grade and an optional black loop that branches off the red route.

When the rain arrived a caught up with a few local boaters and headed over to the river Dart. Stonking levels provided big volume with the West Dart and Upper Dart being continuous alpine style grade 4/5 in these levels, and rapids i thought i knew well being unrecognisable to me! At the car park i jumped back on for a super quick blast on the Loop section with some members of Exeter Uni.









It was a reminder that whilst Scotland is breathtaking, there's always some amazing fun to be had in the South West of Britain!

Rhona and Raasay (Another Luke and Greg adventure)

 The islands of Rona and Raasay lie in between The isle of Skye and mainland Scotland and is a designated area of outstanding natural beauty.With Rhona and the north end of Raasay comprising of Lewisian Gneiss, the oldest uncovered rock in the world, the central section of Raasay being Torridonian sandstone and the south end of the island comprising of similar pre-cambrian rock found on Skye; it provides incredible geological scenery.
Raasay is a regular hot spot for White-tailed Sea Eagles and home to a sub-species of bank vole found nowhere else in the world, as well as being home to Otters, Mountain Hare, Red Deer and a multitude of rare plant life.

 

At the start of September i joined myself and Greg headed over to Torridon to sea kayak around Rona and Raasay.
 In true Luke and Greg adventure style i managed to forget a spraydeck, however, managed to borrow one from Tom who heads up the activities at the Torridon Hotel. This mishap however, provided us with a silver lining as Tom informed us that the best venison in Scotland can be found being sold my Rona's land manager, Bill.
At the put on we had a brilliant spotting of Otter amongst the kelp and sandstone cliffs. Off we paddled with the sea choppy and the wind gusting, giving us excellent moderate water conditions.

Pulling into a beautiful sheltered bay we spotted Bills home and wandering up the track to his house were met by Bill and a large grin.
Money changed hands and some venison steaks purchased, Bill was dismayed to find we didn't have a frying pan, onion or oil and insisted we take his with us and leave it in the bothy on the north of Raasay. He also showed us around his very comfortable bunkhouse, complete with cooker and fridge. "Here you go lads, take these too!" He said as he produced a couple tins of Tenants from the bunkhouse's fridge.
Continuing our paddle we headed around to the very comfortable Bothy located on the north end of Raasay. Approaching the bothy we glimpsed smoke rising from the chimney and inside were greeted by an already roaring fire and six friendly bothy-mates.

After a night of truly Scotland's best venison, good company and a few drams, we paddled south along the west side of Raasay, exploring inlets and caves.

 

Reaching the south point of the island we headed north along the east side with beautiful sandstone cliffs, a scene that could have been cut straight from Jurassic Park.

The weather had deteriorated and reaching our chosen camp spot we set up our tent. Luckily a small wooden shed, the remnant of a past military outpost gave us extra room to prepare our dinner of cous-cous and mackeral., my mug now forever tasting of fish and a broken spork giving me challenge!

 

The next day the wind was in our favour for our paddle back to our put on, but a long crossing on a beam-sea was to be made first. With the sea state close to 3 it was an exciting crossing, but meant we had good surfing down wind on the way back up the coast, with a family of Porpoise crossing our path!

White Water

The rain arrived at the ideal time for me! I happened to be over in Lochgoilhead with my good friend (brother from another mother) Scott Robinson.
Scott's become a pretty handy kayaker (i'd like to say because of my input... but that's probably a lie!) and has been running a lot of the harder rivers on the west coast. We managed to get a really good run down the middle Orchy in a Monday evening which was enough to wet our appetite for something more full on when the rain arrived. The burns were over flowing on Friday as we drove up the road from the 'goil and Scott suggested we check the levels on the Kinglas.
 Arriving at the put in it was apparent there was plenty of water to run this elusive classic and we got on psyched!

 

The Kinglas drains into loch Fyne and requires a lot of water to run. It starts with alpine-esque grade 3 bouncy wave trains with a couple slightly more technical rapids before a portage at a large weir. From there there is a 4+ rapid with more bouncy stuff until it enters the gorge section. The first major rapid in the gorge is described as a grade 6 is some descriptions, but in reality is modern grade 5. With only two of us, there was only one spare to run safety and we opted to walk this, despite being confident in our ability sometimes it's best not to take the risk.

 

The remainder of the river gave continuous grade 4+ boating with lots of "must make" lines. A couple more of the rapids definately warranted grade 5 and gave excellent technical boating with lots of linked moves to make. About two thirds of the way down the river flows through a tunnel and you are plunged into complete darkness for several hundred metres! The rapids enclosed within the tunnel where big bouncy waves and with no light to see by you have to rely on proprioception to make the moves!
With enjoyable paddling all the way down to the loch, it's easy to see why so many people vote this as the best river in Britain.
A quick hitch hike and we got the boats loaded and had time to make a quick run over to the Falloch. Although we didn't have enough time to run the whole river we did manage to "park'n'huck" the falls. These stand around 30ft and with the large amount of water airated at the base i opted to boof and recieved a pretty soft landing.

Scott had run the falls before and decide he wanted to try and reverse freewheel the drop. Unfortuntaely mis-judging the line he landed upside down and suffered a deck implosion... doh!
The following day we met up with Joe Ryan and headed over to the Etive and Allt a Chaorrain, Scotland natural water park!

Whilst some brilliant paddling was had over the last week, the highlight was definately Scott forgetting his over trousers on the Kinglas and having to paddle in his pants!

Summer Time

This summer has turned out to be a real roller coaster time (as life so often is!) with some excellent and varied work.
Throughout the last few months i've continued to work at a lot with Wilderness Scotland on their excellent Sea Kayking trips, and these have definately been on of the highlights of my season. In addition to their Sea kayaking, i've been lucky enough to guide some of their bespoke walking holidays for a range of clients, all who have been lovely and a pleasure to work with.

I have also had a few days at the end of June working with Glenmore Lodge at the Royal Highland
show. This was an awesome experience to work along side such highly qualified and experienced instructors and represent such a prestigious organization. Running an climbing wall at an event such as the highland show is outside of the norm for a centre as the Lodge, but recieved incredible feedback and thanks from the general public. "Inspiring Adventure" is a really important part of why i choose to do this job and it was fantastic to have hopefully inspired hundreds of young folk and their parents to go and discover more of what outdoor sport has to offer.
I have continued to work on a lot of D of E courses and again it's been a pleasure to work with some fantastic groups and introduce them to the mountains.
With the summer rapidly drawing to a close it leaves me seeking more steady employment again for the winter. I hope to remain in Scotland to continue working toward more advanced qualifications and enjoying being in the beauty of the Scottish mountains.

A weekend of sea kayaking

The Cairngorms offer a vast expanse of mountainous terrain, and it's easy to always stay on the
Aviemore side without venturing deeper into "Deeside" territory. Glen Ey, Glen Tilt and the other areas accessed from Braemar offer wild and remote munros, yet with the advantage of easy access along estate tracks, cruising, be it on foot or bike.
 The last week has been spent working with groups in this area and given me a chance to explore another side of the Cairngorms, with Glens that could have been custom made for wild camping. A great experience and a reminder of why i love this job so much, although not a great place to discover your sleeping mat has a slow puncture!

 A few days off over the weekend gave me and Greg an opportunity to go sea kayaking. A plan was hatched to paddle out from Port Appin, down Lismore and over to Mull, with a wild camp and pub visit on Mull, returning along the Eastern side of Lismore the following day.
 With a good forcast we spent day one enjoying the scenery and cruising on benign seas. Reaching the southern end of Lismore we faced a ferry across the over falls off Lady's Rock. From there we headed over to the brilliant Duart Castle and camped on the shoreline.

 In true "Luke and Greg adventure" style, i had managed to forget my pants and sleeping bag, spending the night in my Duvet jacket! Luckily the whiskeys bought at the local pub were enough to warm me up.

 

With my finger still not healed, and looking like it may never return to 100%, sea kayaking is becoming more and more of a focus for me this year. With the ability to travel good amount of distances and Scotland providing a lifetimes worth of trips in stunning locations, it's hard to beat.

Sunshine, Sea Kayaking and Single track

Life rarely gets better than the last few weeks!
After a great couple weeks at Bigfoot running D of E bronze training and assessments, it was time to head to the west coast with Wilderness Scotland.

 The west coast of Scotland provides some of the worlds best sea kayaking, with turquoise water, beatiful wildlife and rugged coast line, it's truly a sea kayakers dream.
 Based in Plockton, a beautiful fishing town just north of Kyle of Lochalsh, for three nights, gave us the opportunity to explore the areas around Plockton and journey to Skye. With some amazing days already in the bag, including a circum navigation of Scalpay things only got better!

 A journey up the road en-route to Ullapool gave us a chance to stop past Shieldaig, home of sea eagles. Beautifully benine conditions gave us a great days paddling.
Ullapool was our home for the remainder of the week, providing yet more mind-blowing scenery, not to mention the UK's best fish and chips!

 With the Summer Isles truly living up to their name on Wednesdays paddle, our final day was spent with a paddle around the bird sanctuary of Isle Martin just off Ardmair. With a late spring this year, the island was eerily quiet in comparison to it's usual noise of nesting birds, but the sand stone sea cliffs are stunning none the less.

After working hard the last few weeks i thought it high time to have a day for myself.
Catching up with my good friend and ex-house mate Rob, we decided to have a day on the bikes. Inshriach forest has some of the best biking in the area, with what seems like endless flowing single track, technical climbs and breathtaking views, not to mention a world renowned cake shop!

A swing past the local bike shop had us bumping into another good friend and ex-housemate Graeme, who joined us for a quick blast at High Burnside, Aviemore's most local trails. With some beta from the guys in Bothy we road a new climb that has recently been put in, along with some incredible descents i have not ridden before, all of which in stunning blue-bird sunshine.

Another day off before heading over to Bigfoot again for Silver expeditions, there's alot of good work to look forward to!