SusExp 2009 Day 5: Pabbay to Armadale (43km) then night paddle to Sleat Point (12km)

I woke up this morning keen to write a bit more of the expedition blog as I desperately wanted to write it on the way so that I could record more detail. Getting up at 7am, I wrote for 1 hour and managed to get 2 days briefly written up. This was a another frustration for the trip – because things weren’t happening as fast as they could have been, I was getting time in the evenings to write up the days events and feelings. The net result is that I’m sitting in my bed here in Stirling writing this in hindsight, which admittedly is not too straining on the memory, but is also not going to provide as much detail as I would have liked. Nevertheless, I think this is going surprisingly well on the memory front, considering I have a memory like a goldfish at times, so I’ll carry on…

We started getting ready at 8am and managed to get on the water at 10.30am, 1.5 hours later than I wanted it to take. To save fuel we didn’t cook anything, and had the staple uncooked breakfast of oats with water and blueberries from Skye Berries – this dish was really growing on me, the uncooked oats were kind of refreshing because of the cold water. Getting on the water late, I was anxious to make up our time as I’d planned the tides to go through both constrictions at their full rate (in the direction we wanted to go) at spring tides. We would hopefully still get through with the tide in the right direction but it wouldn’t help us as much.

So we set off…a nice following wind took as towards the Skye bridge. A comforting sight as it felt like a milestone, though it seemed to take forever to arrive. I checked in with the coastguard to let them know our plans for the day, and agreed to tell them when we were finished our paddle for the day.

As we approached, I was slightly worried by the flurry of yachts that were coming the other direction under the bridge, which was surely an indication that the tide had turned.

However, when we made it to the Skye bridge I was comforted to see the tide still taking us in the right direction. A short while later we were entering the Kyle Rhea which reaches up to and above around 8knots (about 15kph). I took the GPS out to see what speed we were getting. Although the water was pretty flat, the GPS was flicking between 9 to 12kph. We paddled to see how fast we could get, and I’m sure pretty sure I saw it at 19kph (nearly 12mph) at one point – not bad considering we were coming through at roughly two thirds of its max rate.

After the second milestone of the trip, we were keen for lunch and had it on flatter bit of the coast. Got Kelly going and had the usual simple lunch of oatcakes (Highland Oatcakes) and Barra Bread (which was needing used by this point), plus cheese (from Arran) and some salad (from Deirdre and Bill Peppe), as well as some hot water boiler on Kelly. Just hot water was something Sam had got me thinking about trying, and I really liked it, so simple and refreshing and rehydrating.

The wind was being funnelled slightly down the coast but there was a more southerly part of it, so we decided to cross to the other side of the Kyle Rhea on the coast coming from Glen Elg to the Sandaig Islands before it comes round into Loch Hourn on the north side of Knoydart. A fantastic bit of coast with pine trees coming right to the rocky shore, it looked like how I imagine parts of Canada to be, and half expected a wolf or bear to be roaming the coast. I think I would come back and paddle round Skye again just for a few nights on this specific bit of coast.

After a food break at Sandaig we set our compasses for the crossing to Sleat Point and set off. With a slight head wind from the south we aimed off a few degrees to take account. The sun was starting to dip and looking across to the Black Cuillin made me feel proud to be Scottish, and also made me long for some mountain challenge somewhere – I reminded myself that the Cuillin was on my list of things to do sometime.

Saw porpoises off Isleornsay that appeared to be fishing. Sam with went fishing with his optimism, and as the water was flat and the weather fine, I carried on along the coast. A few hours later I landed at Armadale to set up camp. We’d got separated by miles, not something I’d normally do, but the risks were low, and I think we both probably wanted a bit of time to ourselves.

‘I’ll show you why I took so long’ Sam said, and pulled a mackerel out from under his deck. Lovely – fish soup it was then. Then Sam hit me with another gem of an idea – a night paddle. It was a full moon, the weather was good, and we needed to get some more distance under our belt. After another iterated decision making process, rightly swaying from not going so that we got a good sleep, but Sam convinced me it was a good idea. ‘On one condition’ I said ‘that we still get away early in the morning’. Agreed.

So Sam got cooking his mackerel soup and I went to the Ardvasar Inn to pick up some supplies – butter and cheese and also some mars bars to get us through our night paddle. Sure, Mars aren’t local, but we needed something as a pick me up from a safety point of view. Also, I couldn’t resist the temptation of hot fresh coffee, so got one of them too. The Ardvasar Inn was packed with people which felt quite surreal. Two very different ways of life crossing, one that the expedition, with mainly natural stimulation, and two, a busy social scene, surrounded by people and light and music. It felt appealing to stay there and drink and be merry and speak to girls, but it also felt a bit overwhelming and I soon realised that at this time I wanted the simplicity of sea kayaking. I left the pub and set off back to the shore to get some soup.

One tasty soup later, we managed to get back on the water at midnight. Keen to not compromise on safety, I gave Sam a handheld flare in he needed to draw attention to himself, and we also both stuck glow sticks to our heads so we could keep track of each other. It was pretty exciting, I hadn’t been on a night paddle for a while, and was happy with Sam’s idea. Paddling in the moonlight was a peaceful and calming experience, but we were both pretty tired and keen to get to our destination – Sleat Point.

While paddling, there was some kind of phosphorescence which I’ve only seen a few times before, unfortunately couldn’t get a photo, but it felt special to see something that only happens at night and that you only see in specific areas when you disturb the water and look closely enough.

Arriving at Sleat Point at 2am, we were both struggling to keep our eyes open. What a paddle, I loved it! Pulling the boats up higher than the water would be when we got up at 6am, we hastily got our bivvy bags and sleeping bags and each found ourselves a spot for the night.

Food diary:

• Breakfast: uncooked oats with water and blueberries;
• Lunch: Barra and Isle of Skye Bakery bread, with Barra Bramble jam and cheese;
• Dinner: Sam’s mackerel soup with onion and potato;
• Snacks: mars bars (on night paddle); coffee in Ardvasar Inn.