Day 7 – The monastic life for me

• Crinan to Garvellachs
• 32 kms

Crinan marks the end of stage 2 of my journey. Today is the start of the West Coast section. Between Crinan and Oban there are a few different routes I can take – hug the mainland coast or take in a number of the numerous islands. All options require careful consideration of the tides, as the tidal flows can be very strong in the various sounds and firths.

I have opted to make the most of the fine settled weather and take the most westerly route – out to the Garvellach islands. I have been out there a few times, but never starting from Crinan. It involves going through the narrow gap between Jura and Scarba – the Gulf of Corryvreckan. Home of the notorious Corryvreckan whirlpool that almost put an end to George Orwell completing 1984.

I’ve been through here a couple of times before on circumnavigations of Jura, and it is relatively straightforward if you time it for slack water between ebb and flood. Today, this would occur sometime between 9.30 and 10. I sought a second opinion on my planning from David last night. He confirmed it was a doable plan and gave me plenty of other advice on what to look out for.

I awoke this morning at 4.30, paddled across to Crinan to fill my water bags, informed the Belfast Coastguard of my trip, and was heading west across the sound of Jura by 6.30.

Being at the north of Jura at slack water meant crossing the sound of Jura while the ebb was still running. I could maintain a fairly straight course until I hit the group of islets in the centre of the sound. At this point the strong southerly flow dominated. Although I stuck to a NW bearing my track shows that I was often travelling SW. All I could do was maintain my heading, knowing that when I got across to Jura, the flow would reduce considerably and that I would be able to recover the ground I had lost.

As I got within a couple of kilometres of the north end of Jura, I saw a lone kayaker ahead of me – the first sea kayak I have seen on the water since leaving Edinburgh. By the time we stopped for a chat, we were in an eddy that kept us moving north without any effort from us. He, Rob, lived locally on the north of Jura – a sparsely populated part of a sparsely populated island (a total population of about 250). He was interested in my trip and would have accompanied me to the Garvellachs if he hadn’t had his son staying with him.

I arrived at the eddy line between the north flowing eddy and the main easterly stream around 9am and could see that I’d still have a considerable time to wait before it would be slackening off. I went ashore for a bit.

Whilst ashore I saw a sea eagle and a small heard of goats. The eagle was being harried on its way by some angry sea gulls, and I wasn’t in time to get a photo. I was able to capture this little video of the goats, though.

Once back on the water, I waited at the eddy line until it became less pronounced, and the main flow looked weaker. At 9.40, I was on my way. It weant without any drama, but I think I probably could have made things easier for myself if I’d waited 10 minutes longer. I was making slow progress against the remains of the ebb before I started to speed up.

The rest of the paddle to the Garvellachs was long and hot as I’d put on my long sleeve cag at the beginning of the day. I was happy to finally get out of the boat around noon. That was six hours in the kayak with only the short break on Jura.

The Garvellachs are a short chain of islands. The one I reached first, Eileach an Naoimh, was where I camped for the night. None of the islands have easy beach landings, and the only obvious place to get out is a narrow, rocky gully that ends in a pebble beach. As I was arriving at low tide, I’d have to wait for the water to come in before finally getting the boat to the pebble beach.

A few yachts were anchored close by, and I had company till mid afternoon. After they left, I had the island to myself. Though, a large yacht arrived late evening to anchor off shore for the night.

The island flowers.