Thursday, August 20, 2009

SusExp 2009 Day 6: Sleat Point to Loch Brittle (33km)

Waking up this morning, emerging from our bivvy bags, we were confronted with a grey wet day. The sleeping bag I had was only a very light summer one and I woke up shivering – thankfully this soon stopped once I got moving around. The wind was blowing as the forecast, south or south-easterly 4 or 5, which was good for us. After three hours sleep at the most we weren’t feeling on top of the world, and I wasn’t sure how this would affect us today. There was a wee bit of surf crashing on the beach, but only a wee bit, nothing worth worrying about…or so we thought.

We had our usual look at the map to discuss ‘escape routes’ where we could go to abort the journey at any point if anything started to go or went wrong. After having a quick bit of breakfast – Sam had oats with banana and I just had a few bananas (yes, I gave in, I was too tempted by the sweet energy and ease of consumption) – we got on the water.

A quick push through the small waves and we were off on the next leg of the journey. Shortly after getting away from the beach, I heard ‘oh no!’ Sam noticed his hatch cover was open. To this day, we’re not sure how it came to be open, maybe it wasn’t closed to start with, maybe it was something like a bit of string jammed between the hatch cover and the boat. Whatever the reason, we promptly closed it and continued our journey. I was keen to just get more distance under my belt, I had a constant anxiousness in the back of my mind that the harder we pushed, the more chance there was of us completing the circumnavigation successfully.

We rounded Sleat Point and as the mist raised and lowered, I checked the compass and set a heading for NW, which would take us straight past Loch Coruisk and Soay and on our way to Loch Bracadale, the goal for the day.

The seconds, and minutes, and hours passed. We were tired, but the sea wasn’t exactly flat and demanded our attention to both stay upright and on the right course.

Surrounded by mist, I turned the GPS on to find out our location. Stornoway Coastguard, after transmitting the weather forecast, requested all vessels receiving the signal report their position. I tried to do this on VHF but didn’t receive a response so didn’t try to call them more than once in case they thought we were in trouble if some broken up message came through – think the mist was limiting the range of the handheld VHF.

So we continued on our NW course, probably half way between Rhum and Skye – I was keen to stay slightly west as the wind was due to veer round to the west and so this would mean we wouldn’t be as side-on to the wind as we would have been, hence not so wobbly. We decided it was time for a stop, we needed some lunch and we were both almost falling asleep while paddling, so a rest was probably a good idea. We came into Loch Brittle and found a bay that, although rocky, was sheltered enough from the swell to be able to land. Then we realised the consequence of the open hatch cover – all Sam’s clothes and sleeping bag were soaked!

We’d have to go in and get them dry, it wouldn’t be fair or safe to carry on, so after some lunch, we paddled into Loch Brittle, and found a nice spot to land (up the river slightly).

Hoping for a night in Glen Brittle hostel, I walked up to see if they had any beds, unfortunately not, but it was no problem. It was still early in the day and we would now have some time to recover from lack of sleep, and Sam would have time to go to the hostel to get at least some of his stuff dry.

After spending the rest of the day recovering, we made tasty dinner of potato and sausage stew with some carrots too, and we also got a dressing of midges in stew too Рmaybe 500 each, personally I think it added a nice texture to the stew, like the crisp bit on top of Cr̬me Brulee. After dinner I enjoyed the time to relax with a dram on the shore Рthanks Talisker!

Despite meaning to be in bed early, I only managed to in my cosy sleeping bag around 9pm. I was so glad to put my head down on my pillow of kayaking gear and rest. I rested well that night, hopeful that we would be well rested and could get away early and cover some good distance tomorrow, at least to Loch Bracadale.

Food diary

  • Breakfast: a few bananas (I gave into temptation of sweet energy);
  • Lunch: Highland Oatcakes; cheese; bread (Isle of Skye Baking Company);
  • Dinner: sausage (Portree Butchers) and potato (Skye local produce sale – Portree) stew.
  • Snacks: Skye Fudge.

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