This morning was going to be the usual race to get things done as quickly as possible so that we got on the water soon. I woke up around
Wow, they were huge. I hadn’t expected anything on this scale, but there were four (I think) massive poly-tunnels. I wondered around then went up to the house to look for him. Before I could get up his drive, he arrived in the car, we said our hellos (I think he was slightly shocked to see me), he dealt with a few things that needed done, and showed me round.
I also met Fiona, who went looking for some eggs from their eggs. There weren’t many because they tend to lay in the afternoon, but we managed to get four, which I was very grateful off.
The professionalism of their operation was quite impressive, and I was glad to have seen it. Jim Inglis arrived to give me a lift back, returning from finishing his work (something to do with training for the construction industry). I left with eggs, parsley and a nice salad for the day, and Roger agreed to put some more stuff on the Local Food Link Van which we would get a drop off from the next day.
So arriving back at Carole and Jim’s I found Sam had cleaned the kitchen and dishes, which was grand. After the usual arrangement of trying to sort ourselves out, we were ready to leave by lunch time, oh apart from one last thing that we couldn’t forget – Skye Fudge!! The moment I’d been looking forward too. Following a quick chat with Carole, we were six packets of Skye Fudge up – great. I was sure that these packets of tasty sugar would get us through the hardest of times. A quick photo shoot (Carole’s got better photos which hopefully I’ll upload soon).
And so we set off on the next leg.
This was another milestone – the most westerly point on Skye, Neist Point, also infamous for rough water when the tide’s running past against the prevailing wind and swell.
We rounded the Idrigil Point some pretty cool sea stacks, which I would later find out were called McLeod’s Maidens. As we continued I saw a boat with a couple of guys fishing, pulling fish out left, right and centre. I went over to have a wee chat and told them about what we were doing. They offered us some fish, which I was delighted. In all honesty, I didn’t feel we had time to sit and fish as I’d rather have been paddling and getting distance behind us to help the circum navigation, so I was happier to accept gifts of fish than to actually catch them ourselves – that’s on this trip, maybe it’ll be different another time.
Five mackerel and one sathe (Pollock) later…we thanked the guys, Neil and his pal (sorry, can’t remember your/his name – if you get in touch, I’ll change this bit). I knocked them out on my cockpit rim and put them between my legs, no time or room to sort them just now. So we paddled on… A pee spot was on the cards, so we found a sheltered set of skerries and made it a lunch spot too.
Neist Point was in our sights now, we could just see the lighthouse in the distance, ever nearing. Continuing up the coast was great paddling, the sun was shining and we were feeling well rested and fit, though not made easy as we were paddling into a force 3 or 4 headwind.
After another pee stop at the last bay before Neist Point, we felt closer to our goal. The tide was running south, against us, but thankfully ever decreasing with every stroke. We caught an eddy in Moonen bay just south of Neist Point, which took us north. Sam was tiring and so we had a short rest at the jetty for food and water. I was slightly nervous as the south-going tide was going to be running against the wind and swell, so I wasn’t sure exactly what this would be like, and I probably built it up quite a lot, so understandably, he may have been a little nervous too.
To my surprise, we left the jetty, went west with the eddy (which was no small amount of water flowing!) and rounded the point, but there was no raging tidal race! I was slightly disappointed as I’d kind of hoped for a bit of tidal race paddling with some white water. So we paddled round enjoying the relatively calm water and continued up the coast.
The sun now lowering, the coast became a yellow-orange, making the rocks and coast seem more impressive than before.
This was my favourite bit of coast so far, I think maybe because it was the furthest west we’d been and it felt closest to home and the sea I had grown up with, i.e. bigger swell than anything we’d seen so far.
Continuing up the coast the rounding the point, we came into Loch Pooltiel after another interesting bit of geology: the columnar basalt right to the sea in a horizontal structured, with amazingly clear structured crystallisation
Dodging the people casting fishing rods, we found a slip way and set up camp. I think Sam was keen for bed, however, after getting some dinner on, the thought of hot food made him hold back from heading off to the land of nod for a few hours. Sam took care of dinner while I went to find heather for Kelly – after searching the whole hill and almost giving up, on the walk back I found some at the side of the road which would be enough to boil some water for tea.
We used most of the fish for stew, but I filleted some for barbecuing on Kelly. This cooking kit that they sell is a new thing, and I have to admit, is a bit of a black art, but after a bit of trial and error, I started to get the hang of it. A few minutes later we had some cooked and well smoked mackerel which were lovely! Also tried Sam’s method of cooking on wood, which seem to work ok, but maybe could do with some fine tuning – I think the principle came from cooking on hot rocks that have been heated by fire.
After some stew we were both ready for our beds and after realising it was
Food diary:
- Breakfast: uncooked oats with water; rhubarb and bell heather honey soup;
- Lunch: oatcakes (from Vanilla Skye); Cabroc (Scottish goat’s) cheese; salad (Isle of Skye Fresh Produce Company);
- Dinner: mackerel stew (fish from the Neil and his pal in the boat, potatoes from the market stall); grilled mackerel (flame grilled on the Kelly Kettle cooking set).
- Snacks: Skye Fudge.
No comments:
Post a Comment