Sing along with Tim & Lynne…
Mull of Kintyre
Oh, mist rolling in from the sea
My desire is always to be here
Oh, Mull of Kintyre…
Now I have your attention and installed an ear worm you really don’t want, we’ll get back to the paddling.
From our campsite on the decking of a long unused beach hut at the entrance to Campbelltown Loch it was about three hours with the ebb tide through Sanda Sound to Dunaverty. Hungry, we had an early lunch and a cuppa and wandered off into the village of Southend. The exploration didn’t take long, the tatty looking pub didn’t open until six and the dark and dingy shop had lots of Irn-Bru and not a lot else with a greater nutritional value. There was of course a golf course, they’re everywhere, outnumbering castles 2:1 at this stage.
We had hours to kill to wait for the tide to be just right to round the Mull. The Clyde Cruising Club sailing directions, the Admiralty tidal stream atlas and the Mull of Kintyre chapter in the Pesda Press sea kayaking guide all more or less concurred - be below the lighthouse at about HW slack just as the northerly ebb flow close inshore begins.
On a neap tide only of course and we were slap bang on the day of neaps, 12 June. Even if we hadn’t hit the perfect day and were a few days either side it wouldn’t have mattered given the incredibly settled and windless weather of the last few weeks, the sea conditions weren’t going to spring any surprises.
This area of water has some fierce tidal action, the Mull of Kintyre is the northern point of a narrow gap, North Channel, separating Scotland from Torr Head in Northern Ireland. Every flooding tide it seems as though the whole northern Atlantic Ocean tries its hardest to squeeze through the 20km wide North Channel into the Irish Sea. Then of course on the ebb the whole lot squeezes back out again. The tidal streams do funny things too, for instance the ebb flows very strongly north up the western side of the Mull.
Looking at a map of the area you’d think logically it would be the other way around as the Sound of Jura and all the waterways to the north should empty south west out to sea.
It’s not so simple.
There’s so much water flowing out of the Irish Sea through North Channel that it can’t all fit through the ~40km gap to the west between Islay and Northern Island and out into the Atlantic, so it flows north into the Sound of Jura. The Sound of Jura is effectively a dead end apart from a few narrow gaps between the islands where tidal streams can reach 8-10knots. One of these gaps is the famous Gulf of Corrywreckan between Jura and Scarba.
So there we are sitting on the beach at Dunaverty nervously looking out to sea contemplating the utterly massive movement of water swirling back and forth and our minuscule liaison with it.
The careful timing of that liaison determined our departure from Dunaverty at 5:30, getting us in the vicinity of the lighthouse about 7 to catch a ride on the ever strengthening stream north towards Machrahanish.
We were in these waters in 2013 and had landed for a short break at a small rocky beach at Innean Glen 6kms south of Machrahanish. The beach, wide open to any westerly swell and with shallows full of rocks needed very calm seas to be able to land without breaking something. We had those conditions then and again now, so it was our planned campsite for the night. We just had to paddle ~25km of impressive cliff bound coast with no chance of landing to get there.
In this remote spot in 2013 we discovered a large white wooden cross, simply inscribed with ‘God Knows’.
The ‘sailors grave’ as it is known marks the grave of an unknown sailor whose body was found on the beach in 1917.
If you want to go down an internet rabbit hole click here. The Sailor’s Grave at the Inneans | The Road to Drumleman
After a largely windless day, a gentle north-east breeze picked up as we left the beach, enough to get a sail up for a short time before it died away. On we plodded, hot even this late in the day and still. Again not a breath of wind and a glistening mirror calm sea.
As we approached the very southern most tip of the Mull a gentle south-westerly picked up. Welcomingly cool and refreshing and it flitted through my mind that if it keeps up we might have a great sail up the west coast.
Hah!
The wind picked up a little, and as we rounded the southern most point it picked up a little more. As we turned north-west the wind veered with us to stay right on our bow and then picked up some more.
Suddenly we found ourselves battling a 15kn headwind, though by this time we could tell we had a very healthy current pushing us along so despite the paddling being hard work we were making good progress. Despite the favourable current, knowing we had ~10km to Innean Glen into the howling headwind I couldn’t help wondering how much progress we’d make if we turned back with both sails up and the wind behind us.
It was strange that there was no sea building with the wind. The fetch to the west and north-west was considerable, this wind over even a fraction of that distance would quickly build metre high waves steepened further by the opposing current. The sea was covered in white horses but the waves were barely a foot high.
An extremely local wind then, perhaps the Mull of Kintyre was showing its ire at our presumptuousness. About 1.5km from the lighthouse we tucked in behind a large rock. Sheltered from the wind we could stop paddling, down a couple of muesli bars and prepare to battle on.
Emerging from shelter, oh thank goodness, the winds dropped a bit. By the time we reached the lighthouse it had almost completely died away.
A short time later it was completely windless and the sea returned to a glistening mirror calm.
As though nothing at all had just happened.
At about 8 we were knee deep in the shallows easing the boat through the rocks and up the shingle beach at Innean Glen to be welcomed by a big herd of feral goats and clouds of midges.
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