Home   News   Article

Tide and time wait for no man on kayak trip to Copinsay


By Ben MacGregor

Easier access to your trusted, local news. Subscribe to a digital package and support local news publishing.



Click here to sign up to our free newsletters!

OUT AND ABOUT WITH RALPH: A solo adventure to an uninhabited island makes for an apprehensive but fascinating trip back in time

Landing on Copinsay.
Landing on Copinsay.

Who does not feel the call of uninhabited islands? But unless you know a knowledgeable local with a boat, they remain enticing yet out of reach.

So, if you really want to reach these wonderful places, of which there are many in the north of Scotland, you will have to become that knowledgeable person with a boat.

Spring tides on Orkney can be ferocious. I’d joined a group for some training in the waters around Eynhallow where the rousts can run at seven knots. The trip had not been well timed, we had to paddle against the tide all the way from Gurness and against the tide all the way back.

I will not forget the experience of sitting behind a skerry in the middle of a huge river of water flowing westwards at seven knots and knowing that somehow we had to get back to our starting point two miles to the east!

I don’t normally venture into tidal waters on spring tides but, having survived Eynhallow, now felt reasonably confident of a trip to Copinsay where the tidal flow is considerably less.

On clear days you see this island in the distance from John O'Groats – it has a characteristic outline of gentle slopes rising to end in vertical cliffs. Now an RSPB nature reserve, it was last inhabited in the 1950s.

Copinsay cliffs.
Copinsay cliffs.

You need to take the published tide times with a pinch of sea-salt on Orkney, as tides can turn at least an hour earlier than expected. I set out from Newark on Deerness on a grey morning of light north-east winds to find the south-west-going tide already picking up, and had to head well to the east to keep a course across the Copinsay Pass.

The trick is to use a transit, paddling at an angle which keeps two prominent features in line with each other. After an hour and a half I came into the stony beach by an old jetty on Copinsay.

It’s exciting to land on an island where you’ve never set foot, especially if you are the only person on the island, and I had several hours to explore before the tide changed.

I could see very rough water further east around the tiny island known as the Horse of Copinsay (which reputedly had enough grass to fatten one sheep, feed two or starve three) so was not paddling any further!

Terns, with well-grown chicks, dived and screeched at me on the shore. Curious seals watched from the water. There are huge colonies of sea-birds on the eastern cliffs, there are corncrakes and bonxies and even large numbers of great yellow bumblebees. Not that I saw any – it was too cold and grey.

There’s a big old farmhouse on the shore, with one room open as a shelter and information point. A visitors’ book showed that the few explorers who came here were almost entirely Orcadians.

Copinsay ruin.
Copinsay ruin.

An overgrown road led up the gentle hill to a lighthouse on the top of the island. Without grazing sheep, the island had reverted to dense tussocky grass with purple thistles and blue vetch, rough and difficult to cross on foot.

Kittiwakes still called from colonies but most birds had now fledged. Walking the cliff edge was a bit unsettling, the 150-foot cliffs overhang a rough and breaking sea.

A few bonxies – great skuas – were nesting on the very top with well-grown chicks. These big, heavy birds are notoriously aggressive but by holding a walking pole above my head I could deter their dive-bombing. Every footstep needs to be carefully watched in a place like this!

I made my way slowly back down through the thick tussocks of grass to the gentler northern shores. There is always a certain apprehension having paddled alone to an island, never forgetting that you still need to paddle back, but there was plenty of margin with tide and wind on this trip.

On Corn Holm.
On Corn Holm.

Nevertheless, I set off early, with time to explore Corn Holm, Ward Holm and Black Holm, islets connected to the main island at low tide. Here were friendly shingle beaches and large patches of the oyster plant with its blue flowers.

A ruin with two stone-built gable ends evoked the old Orkney, now mostly long gone, of George Mackay Brown. Terns screamed, seal heads bobbed.

I paddled past the cairns on Ward Holm and let the tide help me back across the rippling sea to the modern piers at Newark Bay overlooked by the modern wind turbines on Point of Ayre.

In the thin mist, Copinsay looked a satisfyingly long way off, a long way indeed from the modern world.


Do you want to respond to this article? If so, click here to submit your thoughts and they may be published in print.



This site uses cookies. By continuing to browse the site you are agreeing to our use of cookies - Learn More