The Devil's bridge of Burrow Head.

Due to lost time on the shuttle, we had started a little later than planned. We still needed to meet the tidal window at Burrow Head and so we skipped first luncheon,  carrying on towards the Head.

Close to the head, a strong counter eddy forms in the last 2 hours of both the flood and the ebb, particularly so at springs. This means that "slack water" close under the rocks occurs when the main

Touching the past on the way to Burrow Head.

At Bloody Neuk, about 4km short of Burrow Head, we came across the wreck of the SV Chile, which came to grief here in WW1.

Although she was a sailing vessel, she had steam powered winches...
to work her rigging.
There is nothing quite like touching the wreck of a once great ship...
...as mental preparation for rounding a distant headland, with a notorious tide race.

We were so far south that there was almost a whiff of civilisation in the air.

At the end of January we drove far to the south, into the recesses of Galloway's remote Machars peninsula.

The winter sun struggled into the sky above the distant Burrow Head, a mysterious headland, which is isolated by the swirling tides that scour the Irish Sea.

We convened at the little harbour of Port William. Our arrival did not go unnoticed, the local sea kayaker braved the minus 5 degree

Jetting off for some winter sun on Costa Clyde

From the mouth of the Doon we paddled under the grim walls of Greenan Castle, which is perched right on the edge of the cliff. Castles are one of the great features of paddling in Scotland. They are a reminder that what are now apparently remote places were once lived in (and fought over) by our ancestors.

We bumped into Richard, from Ayr, who was trying out his shiny new Rockpool GT. I