Author: Ritchie

• Kinghorn to Granton and home
• 22 kms

When I first looked out of the tent this morning, it was still breezy and overcast. By 8 am, as I pulled away from the shallow sands, things were starting to improve. I was expected at Granton on the south side of the Forth at 11 am and had plenty of time to take my preferred route across the shipping channels.

I headed west past Burntisland and onwards towards Aberdour. The main channel splits in two here – one going north of the attractive island of Inchcolm to the Braefoot Gas Terminal and the other to the south for traffic going further up the Forth. I had watched a vessel head to the Braefoot Terminal yesterday evening, so I was pretty sure I’d be OK crossing the northern channel.

I headed towards the small Car Craig island to the east of Inchcolm until I had the main channel buoys in line with the Oxcars lighthouse and Inchmickery beyond.

By crossing the main channel here I had, a clear view east and west, a clearly defined perpendicular traverse, and good transits to align myself with to determine if the wind or tide were pushing me in one direction or the other.

I passed to the west side of Inchmickery, and then, as I was making good time, headed over for a view of Cramond Island.

After that, it was a short paddle back to the east (with wind behind!) to get to my final landing spot on “brick beach” at Granton.

Over the next few days, I will gather my thoughts and post a few more times about my overall experience of the journey.

• Elie to Kinghorn
• 38 kms

The weather conditions today were much better than yesterday, but it still wasn’t a paddle on a mill pond. An F3/4 westerly was blowing in my face for most of the day, so I still needed to push hard if I was going to make my preferred Friday morning finish.

Although I’m in my home waters now, there is still plenty of the Forth coastline that I haven’t paddled before. A suggestion for a day trip across Largo Bay and past Methil Docks probably wouldn’t drum up a great deal of interest with kayak club members.

I have never visited Methil before, but it is forever linked in my mind by the Proclaimers with Bathgate, Irvine and Linwood as the “no more” towns. I couldn’t get the song out of my head for most of the day.

My lunch spot on a park bench on Leven waterfront wasn’t the most picturesque of the trip, but the dogs and their owners provided plenty of entertainment.

The three tall tower blocks in Kirkcaldy can be seen from my kitchen window in Edinburgh. As I passed close to them today, I could see seals basking on the rocks and the ruins of an old castle in front. I’ll probably think of them differently now when viewing them from home.

It was low tide as I rounded the point at Kinghorn and was confronted by the large expanse of the Burntisland sands. I had been aiming for Silversands at Aberdour as my destination today, but my arms and back were telling me that this was a better place to call it a day.

• Crail to Elie
• 15 kms

When going across the Tay Estuary, I wore my long sleeve cag with a short sleeve t-shirt. The long stint on the water and the hard paddle at the end resulted in some abrasion sores on the inside of my elbow. I’ll be wearing my short sleeve cag for the remaining days – regardless of the weather.

The weather today wasn’t a whole lot better than yesterday, and it was touch and go on whether I’d give paddling a go or not. I felt well rested from my two nights in a bed, and the sun was shining, so Wendy and Jane helped me and boat return to Crail Harbour.

After half an hour battling into an F5/6 headwind and the sun now gone, I was having second thoughts. I considered turning round and heading back to the harbour, but on seeing a landing spot beneath two long ago abandoned houses, I decided to take a break there and consider my options.

I spent an hour or so sheltering by the houses. When the sun came back out I met a man from the Fife Coast and Countryside Trust organising a pile of trash. He spent one day a week slowly hiking bits out to locations accessible by his truck. The vast majority of it was washed up creels and other fishing paraphernalia.

Another hard stint on the water got me as far as the welcome shelter of Cellardykes Harbour. The boat remained here for much of the day. I changed out of my paddling gear and played at being a regular Fife Coast tourist. Fish and Chips in Anstruther, a hike along the coastal path, and a large ice-cream cone.

The wind was forecast to drop slightly in the evening. I returned to my boat at 4 pm. and headed out for a final push for the day. Two hours later, I made it to a nice beach east of Elie that was just too tempting to pass up on. Here I camped for the night. Over four hours of paddling had resulted in only a 15 kilometre gain in distance. Walking would be faster.

• Crail
• 0 kms

Wendy had found an excellent little cottage to rent by Fife Ness lighthouse with sea views on either side. It was lovely to spend a day relaxing, feasting, walking, and viewing the sea from the land.

Yesterday, while unloading my boat on the Crail slip, I spoke with Jessica and Stuart (I may be recalling their names incorrectly), a couple from Los Angeles who were approaching the end of their month long trip in Scotland. At home, Jessica paddled in outrigger canoes and had been keen to do some kayaking in Scotland. As well as our shared interest in paddling on the ocean, we discovered that we were also going through similar journeys with auto-immune diseases. I’m hoping my blog will encourage her to return to Scotland to get the kayaking adventure she missed out on.

• Tentsmuir to Crail
• 30 kms

The skylarks were singing over Tentsmuir from the time I awoke at 4.30 to when I set off paddling almost four hours later. I had the beach to myself and only saw the first person and dog head my way as I pushed the kayak out onto the calm water.

The light offshore winds provided no hindrance on the paddle south to St Andrews, and then as they increased in strength, they assisted me on my journey southeast towards Fife Ness.

This is not a section of coast I have paddled before, but one I have hiked with Wendy and our neighbour, Mike, as we have slowly picked off sections of the Fife Coastal Trail – making good use of our “old people” bus passes. It’s interesting to see familiar views from a different angle.

At lunchtime, I was approaching the nice sandy Kingsbarns Beach, so I stopped with the intention of eating my normal fare – tin of mackerel, broth from a food flask prepared in the morning, and some fruit. However, I was surprised to find a sauna, toilets, and, best of all, a food van! My lunch plans changed immediately. I thoroughly enjoyed the special of the day – a Philadelphia Hoagie – sitting at a table.

I was hoping to reach Crail today – the first harbour after turning the corner at Fife Ness and heading southwest into the Firth of Forth – but was uncertain about how the sea conditions would change as I picked up a headwind parallel to coast.

I needn’t have worried. Although the wind was strong, the sea was still slight, and by hugging the shore line it was quite easy to make steady progress towards Crail.

I arrived at Crail Harbour just after low tide. It was possible for me to drag the kayak across the shallow water at the entrance, but once within the remaining pool of water inside the harbour, my only route to harbour wall or slip was across deep smelly mud. I chose to exit the harbour again and use the alternate beach and slip on the left of the harbour entrance.

I had time to unpack my kayak and wheel the empty boat across the soft sand to the slip before Wendy and my sister, Jane, arrived to collect me. Tomorrow’s forecast was for very strong winds, so I had decided yesterday that Crail would be a nice place to have a mini-break.

• Ethie Haven to Tentsmuir
• 35 kms

I made some good decisions and some poor ones today. My best was opting to have a slice of coffee and walnut cake as a dessert after my full breakfast at The Old Boatyard in Arbroath. My worst was putting myself in a position where I needed the last reserves of energy it gave me to make it ashore.

The day started well. I was up early and heading south past another stunning coastline soon after 8 am. The winds were light, but the forecast wasn’t particularly great – SW and W winds F3 to F5.

As I rounded the first corner, I was greeted by a single otter. He/she was finishing off the last bit of a tasty morsel and soon disappeared under the water again, no doubt, in search of another crab to munch on.

I did a short tour of Auchmithie Harbour, or at least, what’s left of it. It doesn’t look as though many boats make use of it now.

Many of the cliffs had shingle at the bottom, so although there was a half metre north sea swell running, there was very little reflection coming back from the cliffs.

The last section of cliffs after the Deil’s Head were the exception, and the clapotis was quite substantial. It was here that a small pod of dolphin, heading north, swam past. There was no possibility of getting my phone out to snap some photos as I needed my hands on the paddle.

It was just before 10 am when I beached my boat on the gently slopping sandy beach in the outer harbour beneath the attractive Signal Tower Museum building. I had time to change out of my wet paddling gear before The Old Boatyard Restaurant by the harbour opened at 10.

Before the breakfast stop, the wind had picked up to a steady F4, and I was preparing myself for a slog along the coast to Carnoustie. However, a heavy rain shower passed over when I was in the restaurant, and both the sea and wind had calmed down considerably when I set off again.

When I exited the harbour, I could see the shore south of the Tay and picked a point to head for. I was on a bearing of 210 degrees, getting slowly further from the northern shore. If the wind did pick up, I could always change my course more westerly to regain the shore. I was going to maintain my course until I was due north of the eastern end of the substantial sandbar on the southern side of Tay Estuary and then head south.

As I got closer to my turning point, I could see the inner channel marker buoys. I changed direction slightly to head directly towards the starboard one. Turning south at the buoy and crossing the channel at right angles would put me in the shipping lane for as short a time as possible. I attempted to take a photo before crossing, to take in the two channel buoys and the marker point on the shore I’d been heading for, but I ended up broadside on to a short period steep sided sea. Not a comfortable position to be in with paddle on the deck and phone in hand. Time to concentrate on the job at hand.

I passed close enough to the port buoy that I could read its name (Inner Red) and see that there was only a very slight easterly current running. I was crossing at the ideal time – just before slack water.

At this point, I felt everything had gone well and that my decisions had been good ones. I continued to paddle southward until south of the sandbar and then headed back on my 210 course towards the reliable markers on the shore. As the westerly wind strengthened, it started to dawn on me that my shore marker was further south than I realised (just north of St Andrews) and that I was six kilometres offshore.

I headed west, directly into the wind and sea, and paddled hard. If it hadn’t been for my GPS telling me that I was making steady progress, I wouldn’t have believed the distant trees of Tentsmuir Forest were getting any closer. It took two hours of non-stop hard paddling to finally regain the shore.

My hardest day of the trip so far. I’ll be happy for it to remain that way.

• Inverbervie to Ethie Haven
• 31 kms

I was up early and was on the water just after 6 am. No breakfast required, after yesterday’s big three course dinner. I was keen to get as many miles under my belt as I could before the forecast strong headwinds hit me.

There is a blog post I always remember from James’s Pacific Crest Trail hike – “10 before 10” – about how getting 10 miles in before 10 am is the perfect way to start the day. As a sea kayak can travel a little faster than someone walking, I’ve raised the bar a little to 10 nautical miles before 10. And as I tend to work in kilometres, I’ve raised it a little higher still by rounding it up to 20 kms before 10. I haven’t managed it so far this trip – either starting too late or getting hampered by locks on my Lowland Canal days. I use this as my motivation to crack on.

As I’m using a GPS to measure distance covered, it doesn’t matter if I take a few minor detours to investigate a couple of harbours on my journey south – every metre gets logged.

By 8am, I feel as though I’ve got it in the bag as I’m easily up on the halfway distance. However, a required relief stop ashore puts a successful completion back in jeopardy.

It is a murky day, and the last several kilometres north of Montrose are a featureless flat beach in the gloom. My energy stores are running low, and the chance  to complete the challenge is the main driver to keep going. At 9:52, the “distance travelled” field on the GPS rolled over to 20, and, as luck would have it, I had reached the beach below the breakwater at Montrose. An immediate exit and a trek inland to find breakfast. I thought I might have to walk a good distance into Montrose to find anything to eat, but luck was on my side again. The Traill Pavilion was only just out of sight of my kayak and served an excellent full Scottish breakfast and pot of tea. To celebrate a challenge completed, I even rounded it off with carrot cake and coffee before I left.

After rounding Scurdie Ness, the landscape got more interesting, and the sun started to make an occasional appearance. I was feeling refreshed and had the time and energy to get another 20 kilometres in.

Unfortunately, the forecast winds arrived halfway across Lunan Bay. Although OK for completing the bay crossing to Ethie Haven, it would have been foolish to attempt the next cliff section of coastline to Arbroath.

There were a few residents out in the small community at Ethie Haven. I chatted to them about my camping options. They generally have a no tent policy within and around the gardens of the cottages, but as keen sea kayakers themselves, they were prepared to make an exception for my single tent for one night. They even had an outside loo I could make use of. It was the perfect spot to make an early camp and get my wet kit dried on the now sun baked rocks above the high water line.

• Cove Bay to Inverbervie
• 36 kms

I ate breakfast at the hotel when they started serving at 6.30 and then walked the half hour down to the harbour. The boat was packed and ready to go, so I got an early start in the wet and misty gloom.

The abundance of caves along this coastline started immediately. I took a peak in one of the first to appear. I could hear some surf breaking on a beach in the dark, but Jim had mentioned that some have short beaches before continuing with more water. I wasn’t going to check it out on my own.

I stopped at the natural harbour of Portlethen, where small fishing boats are still hauled up the steep grassy slope by winch.

This section of coastline north of Stonehaven is continually enticing you to engage in some “rock hopping” – the act of getting up close and personal with the rocks without actually embracing them. There is an adrenaline rush to be got from timing the surf just right and sailing through a narrow gap over a rock that only moments before was above the surface. Equally, there is that frightening moment of realisation when things haven’t gone quite right, and you know you’ll be spending the next few days repairing the gell coat on the hull of your pride and joy. It’s an activity better undertaken on a day trip with an old plastic kayak, a helmet, and a few mates to scrape you off the rocks when things go wrong. Today, I only engaged with the most conservative wide channels and well covered rocks – hardly rock hopping at all.

At Stonehaven, it was time for lunch, and as I approached the harbour, I was thrilled to see a queue of people lined up at the counter of a seafood trailer van on the harbour wall. I immediately grounded my kayak alongside an assortment of boats in the harbour and walked back to the Seafood Bothie. It didn’t disappoint.

Once south of Stonehaven, the nature of the rocks and cliffs changes quite dramatically – huge cliffs of conglomerate rocks containing some very large rounded rocks and pebbles.

In the cliffs closer to Inverbervie, large numbers of seabirds take advantage of these pockmarked cliffs to locate their nests.

I set up camp at the mouth of the Bervie River opposite Inverbervie. I crossed the river and was met by my brother, Ian, and his wife, Fiona, who were in Scotland on holiday. They’d travelled a considerable distance to come and see how I was getting on and treat me to dinner at the excellent fish restaurant in nearby Gourdon. A great end to a good day of paddling (that’s using a paddle to propel a boat, and not wading calf deep in water with your trousers rolled up, as my sister-in-law likes to imagine it).