It all started with a message from a friend.
“ Fabulous dark-sky pics Lynne- fits with book I am reading and can’t put down, ‘Sea Room’ by Adam Nicholson on the Shiants… incredibly beautiful wild place and incredibly harsh history.”
The Shiants, we thought… Remote, bound by weather and strong tides that rightly give the waters surrounding these elusive islands, shall we say, a reputation.
A mythical reputation too.
But, there’s a few days settled weather coming up and we’re only a few days off neap tides. Also not that far from Uig and the CalMac ferry to Tarbet on Harris. And Tarbet is less than 30km from The Shiants by the shortest route.
We couldn’t get the ebook version of Adam Nicolson’s ‘Sea Room’ through the Tas Library Libby app but they did have another of Nicolson’s books, ‘The Seabird’s Cry’.
A wonderfully evocative mix of classic literature, poetry and science all tied together by wonderful writing. Each of the ten chapters focuses on a particular seabird, most of which we are seeing on a daily basis.
We were hooked, the ebook of ‘Sea Room’ was bought, we both started reading it and from then on all thought was on getting to The Shiants.
Planning, ferry times, slipways for landing and launching, checking tides, food for us and fuel for the stove and of course obsessively checking the weather forecast.
The biggest variable, the weather, of the settled variety was holding.
We were on the water at Stein at 6:30 rounding Waternish Point at 8:30, again just as the northerly flow dropped away and just before the southerly flow began.
Waternish Point
Then we’re shipwrecked.
On land, on the side of the road, 50m from the CalMac ticket office. One of the wheels on our trolley has disintegrated. Listing badly to starboard towards the broken pieces of plastic and the remains of the rubber tyre, an immovable 100kg of kayak, paddling gear, camping gear, clothes and food.
Across the road we spot a 16” wheeled child’s bike lying abandoned and rusting in long grass in front of a house.
I walk over and knock on the door wondering whether with just two Leatherman multi tools the bearings can be disassembled to allow the wheels to slip onto the trolley axle.
As I’m explaining our predicament to the women in the doorway and enquiring whether the child’s bike could be for sale Lynne calls be back. A car has stopped in the middle of the road, the very friendly and helpful locals who live 20mins away have two golf cart wheels and they’ll go and get them for us.
I wonder back across the road to the bemused women and explain, thanks but we’re all sorted now. Sorry to bother you.
So we wait. Lynne buys tickets that are valid for the afternoon ferry, which we may still just catch or the next at 5:15 tomorrow morning.
The very friendly and helpful locals return as promised and with a little Leatherman work the new wheels are fitted to the trolley and the kayak lifted on. But we’re not going anywhere, the weight of the boat alone is enough to almost destroy the new wheels before we even attempted to move it.
Right, chill, breath. Missed this ferry so plenty of time until the morning to get rolling again. We wander over to the campground, book in then explain our predicament to another local. They don’t of course have two suitable wheels but are full of good ideas.
The easiest and most prolific source of wheels in a tiny place such as Uig which is really just a ferry terminal with a few cafes and a servo attached are wheelie bin wheels!
We wander back into Uig armed with a heavy soft hammer that the local had lent us. His instructions on how to remove wheelie bin wheels also included the coverage of CCTV cameras around the terminal.
As luck would have it we found two broken bins behind one of the cafes, the axle on one so rusted that the plastic wheels were split and useless. The other with a few whacks with the heavy hammer a perfect donor to our cause. Back to the kayak, a bit more artisanal work with the Leatherman and we were rolling into the campground.
Last off but no hurry, we wheel the kayak around to the slipway and are first in as the only grocery shop in Tarbet opens it’s doors at 7:30.
Food stocked up and we even found the right 1:50,000 Ordnance Survey map sheet covering the Shiants in the newsagent.
The northerly stream begins at 10 so we slowly packed the boat, put waymarks in each of our GPSs at our destination just in front of the bothy on Eilean An Tighe, tidied everything up and were paddling away into a stiff breeze right on time. The wind funnelling into Tarbet was an easterly headwind but as we neared the Sound of Scalpay we started getting the true southerly direction, just as forecast. With sails up and the tide behind us we shot through the Sound and suddenly there they were on the horizon, our first sighting of the Shiants.
We had a couple of options in mind. To head north west to Loch Bhalamuis where we knew we could land, wait there for the end of the northerly stream to cross the Sound of Shiant in a south south easterly direction. A touch longer route overall, slightly more prudent in regard to the tidal stream but slower and perhaps not such fast sailing.
Or just head straight for them, an 18km crossing but with the 10-12kn wind just on our right shoulders and using the northerly stream to best effect we’d be moving fast. We would though be approaching the islands on the third or fourth hour of the tide just when in theory the currents are at their maximum so any overfalls or other tidal jobbly water would be most active. The wind was forecast to slowly weaken though reducing the chance of wind and tide causing a little mayhem.
It was a perfect day, blue sky and hot sun, smooth seas, it felt so good to have our destination finally in sight after so many days of working to get to this very spot.
To head straight for the Shiants was an easy decision.
I mounted my GPS on the deck in front of me and told it take us to the waymark at Eilean An Tighe and off we shot on a bearing just shy of due east. Almost straight away it was evident the current was trying to take us north east so most of way across the boat was pointing a further 10-20° occasionally 30° to the south to allow for the drift. After an hour or so the lovely sailing wind started dropping away but still filled the sails. After a couple of hours it was smoko time, it seemed a long time ago that we’d had breakfast on the ferry. While we stowed paddles, chewed on a few muesli bars and rested the GPS told us we still moving along at 7-8kph!
1:15 just before high tide we crunched up on the pebbly beach in front of the bothy. The wee dram on landing at the end of the day never tasted so good.
2 comments:
Wheels story is stunning!!!! Thanks! Look fwd to more pics and stories of the Shiants…. JJSx
Great read. Byg
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