Waking up at about 4am in the morning, I stuck my head out of the tent – it was already light. The view of the Sound, "Caol Rona", didn't look great from a paddling perspective. Looking at the wind and swell coming through the Sound, I could see that going around Rona would be a big ask. Zipping up my tent, I played through my mind the conditions we would see on the exposed headlands of the western side of Raasay; it was going to be a somewhat interesting day, that's for sure. Oh well, back to my dreams...
Sure enough, the next morning, little had changed and, if anything, the conditions had worsened. Leigh immediately said Rona was out of the question, to which the group fully agreed. But this led us to a slight issue with our planned camps. Not "doing" Rona would mean the second night's stop would be too near our current location. Therefore, a second night's camp further down the coast of Raasay would be required, and a bit of "ad lib" campsite spotting would be necessary. Looking at the map, there didn't seem to be many places to stop on that side of Raasay, let alone camp. Oh well, don't panic and paddle on.
Getting going was a bit of a faff, as the beach we had landed on the night before, at high-ish water, was now a slippery, seaweed-covered boulder field, with it being low water. This required carefully lifting the fully loaded boats over the slippery, boulder-strewn seaweed. Eventually, with biceps now the size of Arnold Schwarzenegger's, we managed to get going.
Initially, in the Sound, conditions were not too bad, as we were heading into the wind and swell. But rounding Rubha na Cloich’ Uaine ("the headland of the green stone" – although I cannot remember seeing a green stone), we saw that we were in for a bouncy ride. At least the wind and swell was slightly behind us, pushing us down the coast of Raasay. Leigh led the group from the front, and I generally took up position at the rear, in case of any unplanned activities.
We slipped inside Eilean Fladday to seek its protection from the swell, portaging and taking a break on the still-to-be-flooded causeway. Again, another team effort of lifting the fully laden boats over the slippery, seaweed-covered rocks. I took a walk up onto Eilean Fladda and was surprised to see three cottages on top of the island, along with the ruins of earlier houses. No supermarket deliveries there, that's for sure – talk about being remote. No one seemed to be home, except for a couple of deer outside the third cottage.
Back on the water, we carried on seeking whatever shelter we could from the unrelenting swell. When we had a break and a leg stretch, we found a partially decomposed skull of a ram with great big curly horns. I was almost tempted to keep it, but it did pong a bit, so I left it perched on a rock. Shortly after finding the skull, we found the rest of the ram's decomposing body. Nice.
As we approached Holomon Island, I was convinced we were only at Eilean an Inhire ("the island of the lower land/water"). Now, I blame my map-reading issue on only having a 1:50,000 OS map, which was printed on two laminated sheets, split over two sheets, requiring turning over, etc. Whereas Leigh had the full-fat 1:25,000 OS map. I shall say no more, except I was gutted that I was slightly wrong with my map-reading skills. Let's say, if I was on Mastermind, maps would be my chosen specialist subject. I adore maps. Doh! Oh well, the best bit about being wrong is that we were further down the coast of Raasay than I thought.
Having passed Holomon Island, we headed for a beach underneath a house called Manitoba. It wasn't a patch on the previous night's stop, but the group was tired and it was a sensible place to stop for the night. It actually wasn't that bad a camping spot. There was a nice beach and, despite being exposed and blown by the wind, it had a nice, level-ish heather "blanket" on which to pitch our tents.
Tents pitched, grub consumed, we hit the sack.
Around 2 or 3am in the morning, I became aware of a constant engine hum. I stuck my head out of the tent and saw what I first thought was some sort of cruise liner in the bay, moored not far from "our" beach. The wind, by now, had stopped, and all was deathly still, apart from the constant hum. Typical, I thought. Of all the places to come and moor up and disturb the peace and quiet, you had to come and do it on "our" beach. I retreated into my tent and put my good ear into my pillow to muffle the hum. There are some benefits (not many) to being deaf in one ear!
Nighty Night!
Fab!
11.5 nm 7 hour 30 minutes. (11.5 nm - is that all - it felt much further)
GPS track
