Summer in Scotland!
So, what inspired this trip?
Gordon Brown is an excellent sea kayaking coach who lives and teaches on the Isle of Skye. I've taken classes with him several times at sea kayaking symposia in Oregon and California. I've only made it out to Skye to learn with him once a number of years ago. Turns out he and his family are moving to Canada in August (wow!). I realized that this summer would be my last opportunity to take classes with him again paddling the waters off the coast of Skye. So I took it.
Of course, while I was Scotland I got to see old friends in Edinburgh and Glencoe. It was great to hang out with all of them.
Over the weeks I was there I got out kayaking eight days, relaxed in Glencoe for a few days, and had a number of days to really enjoy Edinburgh. I took a few pictures that I'm posting in these blog posts:
Edinburgh June 2018
Heading to Skye
Kayaking on Skye: Kilmaluag Bay
Glencoe June 2018
Traditional Music in Plockton
Paddling along the Strathaird Peninsula
Sunny day for getting wet
Kayaking Loch Bracadale
Kayaking to Loch Coruisk
To start these posts, I'll repost my real-time FB account of the journey to Scotland:
Right now I'm still at Heathrow waiting for my connecting flight to Edinburgh. So we start with a couple pictures of SFO and Heathrow...
International Terminal at SFO. I don't get here very often.
And Heathrow Terminal 2. I'd forgotten just how big Heathrow is.
My flight from Heathrow to Edinburgh was on a local airline called FlyBe using this plane. I'm not a fan. The views over the countryside were nice tho.
Finally got to Edinburgh and made it to the Airbnb flat I'd rented in Marchmont, a neighborhood near the University where I'd spent lots of time when I lived there. The neighborhood is filled very nice flats with high ceilings, bay windows, and cozy fireplaces.
Friday June 29th was our last day of kayaking on Skye. The weather continued to be amazing so we could safely paddle pretty much anywhere we wanted. We chose the most beautiful spot where we had not yet been: Loch Coruisk in the Cuillin Hills west of Elgol. Loch Coruisk is a lake that's only about a quarter mile from the sea. An easy hike.
We launched at Elgol and paddled west toward near Loch Coruisk.
To a very pretty little beach.
We couldn't just land there. Oh no, we needed to take advantage of the warm weather and do some kayaking exercises. Things like practicing landing your kayak on rocks and various balance exercises. Things where we were guaranteed to get wet. I still think it's amazing that it was warm enough in Scotland to do this wearing shorts.
And more balance exercises...
Finally we did land and hiked up to Loch Coruisk.
It's a beautiful lake nestled among the mountains.
We found a great spot for lunch and relaxed.
Then headed back to Elgol. Again I was amazed at how good the water felt.
A perfect day for ice cream! Such a nice way to wrap up our kayaking days on Skye.
Thursday, June 28: Sea cliffs on Loch Bracadale
Today we were coached by Kate Duffus of Skyak Adventures. The forecast was again for a hot day with little wind and calm seas, which gave us the opportunity to go to a beautiful area that is pretty challenging to paddle on windy days: Loch Bracadale. This is on the west of Skye before you get to Dunvegan.
This loch has some amazing sea cliffs and caves. Since I don't get to Skye very often I wanted great scenery and today's paddle delivered.
The following images zoom in on it. The final image shows our route.
Loch Bracadale has some striking sea cliffs and caves and amazing views, but it is usually difficult to paddle because many typical winds on Skye produce rough wind wave conditions on this loch. So we took advantage of the amazing hot and low wind weather we're having this week on Skye to get out there.
We launched from the village of Harlosh into the loch.
I was determined not to get sunburnt on this trip and I pretty much succeeded.
We headed west across Loch Bracadale to the cliffs on the west side of the Loch.
Our goal was to see as many as the sea cliffs as possible and explore the caves that we could get into. Today the low tide there was right about 1pm so the water was too low to get into many caves. But we got into a few good ones, which you'll see in pictures below.
We took our time paddling south along the west coast of Loch Bracadale, exploring the caves and playing amongst the rocks. The day was hot and the water was like glass.
We had lunch at the south end of the cliffs at the mouth of the loch. It was an, um, interesting place to land. It did have great views of some sea stacks called Macleod's Maidens. After lunch we paddles around these interesting sea stacks before heading back north.
After lunch we paddles around these interesting sea stacks before heading back north.
The water was now high enough to get into more caves, so our return trip was like exploring a new area.
The wind had come up a bit so there were now wind waves for our crossing back to the beach where we launched, but that was just another opportunity for forward stroke coaching.
Back on shore Kate got a picture of me to show that it was warm enough to kayak on Skye without wearing a drysuit. To actually be warm and comfortable in shorts! The only reason I was wearing a long-sleeved shirt was to protect the skin on my arms from the intense Scottish sun.
