“Life is like a toilet roll- the closer to the end you get, the quicker it goes”…so instead of the LSKC Barbecue I thought I’d better get 0n with a few things still needing done. The Mull of Kintyre is a fearsome place, with complex tides and no landing for 24km, it’s also hard to get daylight, weak tides, swell and wind to coincide in summer months ( Clyde tides follow a pattern conspiring against such things). Dire descriptions abound- ‘At the turn of the tide rollers break on the shore from nowhere’…’counter flowing inner streams hit overfalls’…and there’s a traffic separation scheme only a mile or so out, so whatever of you is left after the tide races will get mown down by commercial shipping….
I’d forewarned a few folk of a likely date- and so they all promptly dropped out- one selflessly committed to caring, another was washed away in predicting floods ( which verily came to pass), yet another underwent surgery, weak excuse to avoid joining me…I took the hint and tried again- Ken McIlroy, Martyn Tunstall were too slow and I signed them up to join myself and Andy Warrender. Our paths hadn’t crossed recently ( Andy’s career took him out east- …..Singapore that is, not Dunbar)so it was brilliant to get some paddling together and remarkably none of us had done this particular trip ( I’d paddled past it 30 years before en route to Rathlin).
We decided to go Machrihanish to Campbeltown, preferring to avoid a 4 am start…and the date promised a significantly small neap tide, and the weather obliged, a tiny window becoming a gaping high!
Various vehicle shuttles, a pitch at the local holiday park and we set off southwards- I was last to launch as my kind companions had hidden my paddle…..which rather set the tone for the day.
Flat calm, which made me look yet more foolish after my emphasis on honing whitewater skills to cope with the incessant overfalls.
We landed on Innean Glen beach a rare priviledge, to visit the sailor’s grave ( inscribed during WW1 by a local shepherd ‘1917- God Knows’ ) and to investigate the intact yacht gunnel deep in the the HW sand.. The cause of the wreck was obvious- an England flag in the foc’sle- and all the while the feral goats looked on unimpressed.
And really that was it, a few ripples betraying the meeting of tidal streams that this ragged shore presides over. Andy towed me past the lighthouse as I played an appropriate McCartney tune on the whistle, and we’d snuck a welly boot onto the back of Ken’s boat which stayed bone dry ( as a distraction from the pillaged loot we’d stowed in his rear hatch). We were very very tempted to paddle across to Antrim- rare conditions. But Ken had to be at work the next day so we bid him adieu and had a great night at Carskey Bay (Andy’s campervan producing chilled gin and orange).
The next day we nipped out to Sanda Island which has the most fantastic lighthouse perched on a 100ft pimple- accessed by two-tier stone turrets…. Hogwarts doon the watter… and had a lovely run in front of a mounting Southerly wind up to the cliffs of Davaar Island (Probably just as well we gave the North channel a miss). A great trip and so good to get time with such great people.
This is a serious headland and we fully appreciated the rarity of these, to be honest, quite disappointingly pleasant conditions. It is clear that those of you at the barbecue required far more paddling skills than we used on this trip, but great weather, superb people and remarkably benign conditions around an unforgiving coast made this a special couple of days.
David Simpson