Highland Insider

Sailors and fishermen may think that God provided the north west coast just for them, with its scattering of tiny islands, shoals of easily-conned mackerel and deep, clear waters. But they’re wrong, of course. This ocean playground of isolated sandy coves, long horizons and close-up wildlife was surely designed just for the kayaker.

No-one else gets so close to the water, whether it’s sparkling blue or khaki-grey; no-one else is quiet enough to get close to the more shy of the birds and mammals that live there, nor slow enough to spot them. Paddling a kayak, you can concentrate on your surroundings; on a calm day you can even go along with your eyes shut for a bit and really tune into the sounds of the sea and how the salty air feels on your skin.

Saturday morning was like that as we eased our way out of Ardmair Bay, just north of Ullapool. It was an easy put-in, even if we hadn’t been staying at the adjacent campsite, with parking for several cars right next to the beach. It only took a few steps over the curiously flat pebbles to reach the water’s edge, where the shoreline is handily steep. We got off to a perfect start, watched from the parking bay by an envious grey-haired motor-biker who’d been unable to resist the view.

‘It’s like a hot knife through butter,’ we said, slicing our way easily through the glistening waters of the bay. We couldn’t quite believe our luck, that we were here, with the kayaks, on such a day. We had about three hours at our disposal, and decided to head north and see how far we could get, allowing for a quick lunch on the hidden beach at the far side of Isle Martin on the way back.

We got a couple of miles past the island, tootling along past little colonies of nesting razorbills and kittiwakes, with the odd group of cormorants standing around like spivs at a cocktail party. The Cal-Mac ferry steamed past on its way to Lewis, its swell making a nice change to the glassy surface. A couple of seals bobbed nearby before getting bored with us and heading off. We had a few tantalising glimpses of an otter diving for its lunch, but it was too fast for us to catch it up. Instead we rafted up and drifted along a few yards away, with young guilliemots playing around and under the boats.

The wind got up as we turned, and all the way back to our lunch spot it was hard work to get nowhere. But by the time we rounded Isle Martin back into Ardmair Bay, it was blowing us in, with enough swell to make a bit of surf to ride on. No closing my eyes here – the sky and the sea were grey now, with choppy waves coming from more than one direction, so I needed all my concentration to stay upright and steer the kayak. The final scoot onto the pebbly beach ended a very satisfying morning, a long-planned treat squeezed in at last.

Tags: coast, highland, sea-kayaking, west coast

This entry was posted on Monday, June 23rd, 2008 at 1:45 pm and is filed under Gallivanting, The wild side, Walking, kayaking, outdoor stuff. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.