Three of us (Gerry Mulligan, Ruaridh MacAlister and Jane McLaren) met up at 8am at Ferryden near Montrose (NO 720 567) to catch the low tide, as the launch is at the entry to Montrose bay and a significant tide can run. By starting at or just before low tide we avoided this and had the tidal assist all the way down the coast and avoid the incoming tide effect of the basin. For Ruaridh and Jane this meant a very early departure from Edinburgh, and easier start for me as I drove my camper up the night before after the club paddle.
Conditions were very good, light winds and overcast, for the whole trip with almost no swell, this made ducking in and out of the many rock gardens easy and fun and allowed us to fully investigate ten or so of the caves and geo’s on the way down this coast.
Our first landmark was the 39m tall lighthouse at Scurdie and from then on we turned left and made our way down the coast, interesting lime kilns looking like old forts kept us interested until the first stop on the lovely beach at Lunan. We made good time and as we left the beach we saw a significant disturbance on the sea, on closer inspection it was many hundreds of birds dive bombing one specific piece of water, presumably because of a shoal of fish.
As we approached we found that the fish were being herded by three dolphins who gave us a good show which Ruaridh managed to capture on his phone. elated by the show we paddled on to the impressive 80m cliffs of Red head and the double arch at Prail Castle. Onward past the village of Auchmithie the birthplace of the Arbroath Smokie took us to the first of the excellent series of caves. In the calm conditions we were able to paddle through some of the caves to the inland geos (a tip from Fiona McKay to bring head torches paid off).
This is really a remarkable series of caves best paddled in calm conditions as the entrances can be quite narrow and there are significant rock gardens along the paddle. We were lucky to have such a quiet day that rocks just under the surface required one to pay attention (isn’t that right Jane…haha).
We spent a few hours pottering around the caves being careful to avoid the rod fishing people who were scattered along the rocks around the stack of the Devils head, finally we paddled across the bay to Arbroath harbour just as the tide started to run against us and landed on the beach to the left of the harbour entrance (NO 642 403) at 3pm having covered about 27km since 8am.
As I had left my Land Rover at the Harbour we could load all three boats ontothe roof and drive back to the start to disperse, or head to Arbroath for smokies and fish and chips on the harbour wall, a great end to a lovely day out. Thanks to Ruaridh for suggesting the trip and Jane for providing a better class of company!
We would recommend this way of exploring the caves as an alternative to the out and back from Arbroath that I understand many do.
Plan for the trip and the tidal advice thanks to Doug Coopers excellent book “North and East Coasts of Scotland Sea Kayaking” pf 177 Scurie Ness, OS sheet 54
Gerry Mulligan