OUT AND ABOUT WITH RALPH: Kayaking the Caithness coastline, bit by bit
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By the time you get to my age, every day you manage to get out and do something is a bonus. Each mini-adventure is to be relished, it might be the last time!
Every year I make an attempt at kayaking, in short stretches, the whole Caithness coast from Helmsdale round to Melvich. Only once or twice have I come close to managing it, always something is missed.
This year, with the season more than half gone, at least half the coast remains unvisited. But some of the more tricky bits have been done.
On a midgey morning at Dwarwick I launched to paddle round Dunnet Head to Brough. Someone was getting ready with a stand-up paddleboard – she looked like a certain steel-cored woman with carbon-fibre hair I’d encountered before. But she never came steaming past as I’d expected.
Thin, silvery clouds provided shade, which was as well as it’s so easy to overheat. Even so, I stopped for a quick roll to cool off at the Peedie Sands, before embarking on the more demanding sections under miles of forbidding cliffs.
It’s a scary place to be, way out in the Pentland Firth alone in a tiny sea-kayak.
But the weather stayed benign, the piled boulder-shores and deep geos passed until the lighthouse came into sight. It was calm enough to get out of the water on slabby rocks under the cliffs, many hopeful puffin-viewers were strung out along the clifftops above, undoubtedly watching me through binoculars.
The cliffs were quiet, the main colonies of sea-birds gone. I touched the most northerly rock on the mainland with my paddle, then carried on past mooing seals to the stacks and harbour at Brough. It was a bit easier than last time when a force seven came out of nowhere and this two-mile stretch took me two hours.
The trip was worth doing just for the walk back across the headland to pick up the car. The wild flowers have been superb this year and I’ve easily counted over a hundred different species.
Came another almost perfect morning with a forecast for calm seas and light winds. The tide was a little bigger than I would have liked, but there would be no better opportunity for one of the best wee local adventures, a paddle round Stroma.
I aimed to leave Gills after the morning ferry, but the Pentalina came in nearly an hour late. So I hurried to get out ahead of it, then paddled up towards St John’s Point keeping close to the shore till the boat had come past. Timing to avoid meeting ferries at sea is an important part of the trip.
The strong east-going tide meant paddling due north to reach the Stroma cliffs a long way to the east, indeed I had to paddle hard to avoid being carried south of the island. It’s a scary place to be, way out in the Pentland Firth alone in a tiny sea-kayak, you just need confidence in your tidal planning and weather-forecasting abilities!
The Stroma Gloup is an amazing tunnel through the cliffs but is dangerous to paddle in swell and there was too much today. North of the Stroma lighthouse is the infamous Swilkie whirlpool, you should time your arrival here for slack water between tides. The white breakers subsided almost magically, just on schedule, as I passed the lighthouse but the waters were already stating to churn as the west-going tide began.
The hardest part of the trip was over and I stopped for a short break at the old harbour to the north of the island, but couldn’t linger too long as a strong contrary eddy would be building just to the south… once through that I could relax and let the tide take me round to the main harbour.
It was now an amazingly clear and sunny day, with fine white clouds starting to build over Hoy. A leisurely lunch in the sun was followed by a wander round the island looking at the Gloup and the wild flowers and the tide-races I’d managed to avoid.
Orkney was sharp and clear, indeed enjoying more sunshine than anywhere else in Britain that day – you could even make out the distant spire of St Magnus Cathedral.
I waited for the busy Pentland Venture to pass on its afternoon cruise before setting off into the fast flowing water which would have taken me straight into its path. After that it was an easy paddle across the sunlit Sound, letting the tide carry me gently westward back to Gills, keeping an eye out for the Pentalina which came in just ahead of me.
So another two stretches of Caithness coast completed!
