Sea kayaking round Morvern

A three day, 114km paddle round the Morvern peninsula via Loch Linnhe, the Sound of Mull and Loch Sunart.

Sunset in Loch Drumbuie, an offshoot of Loch Sunart.

Tides:

Lynn of Morvern/Loch Linnhe
NE flood -0545 HW Oban ((+0110 HW Dover)
SW ebb +0025 Oban (-0505 HW Dover)

There are some peculiarities in the tides here.

A narrow stream of the flood tide entering the Lynn of Morvern hits the

Between a rock and a hard place at Glensanda.

All too soon we had to leave the oasis of Kingairloch...

...and continue our exploration of the  Morvern coast.

We passed huge beaches of perfectly graded shingle.

After some time, we became aware of a curious noise, a bit like waves sucking shingle down a beach, but more sustained and more artificial.

We had found the Glensanda super quarry, the biggest in Europe. The noise we had heard was

A missed luncheon after a detour to Kingairloch?

The SE coast of  Morvern is a wonderful place and we took our time savouring it. At first we paddled along a trackless wilderness...

...until we eventually came across signs of habitation again.

Loch Linnhe stretched away to the SW along an apparently unbroken line of cliffs...

...but eventually some breaks appeared like here at Camas na Croise.

Shortly afterwards we passed a narrow opening,

Seakayakers, gypsies and bothy dwellers on Morvern.

This was a memorable trip that took place early in the month of June. Our aim was to circumnavigate the Morvern peninsula in western Scotland. It is very nearly an island being nearly surrounded by Loch Sunart to the north, the Sound of Mull to the Sw and Loch Linnhe to the SE. Only 11km of land lie between the head of Loch Sunart and Inversanda Bay on Loch Linnhe. We left a shuttle at the public

Five fingers and a long way to fish in Loch Linnhe.

 The sun set long before we reached our shuttle car, which we had left just north of the Corran narrows on Loch Linnhe.

Looking back up the loch we got a fantastic view of Ben Nevis. Just below the summit you can see the infamous five finger gully which traps the unwary on their descent of the Ben.

An Irish trawler, W297 Caronia II, registered in Waterford, passed us as she was making her way

We paddled off into the sunset in Loch Linnhe.

The River Lochy discharged us into Loch Linnhe, which stretched away to the SW and the distant Corran Narrows.

We soon came to Fort William, Scotland's outdoor capital. The town is not just a tourist centre it is also an unpretentious working place and so is not, perhaps, one of the most scenic of coastal towns.  It is hemmed in to a narrow ribbon of land by Loch Linnhe on one side and Ben Nevis

Luncheon on a gravel bed in the River Lochy.

The sea lock of the Caledonian Canal opens to Loch Linnhe beside Corpach pier.

For a little while, the canal follows the shore and we paddled below some fishing boats.

We now crossed the head of loch Linnhe towards...

... Fort William. Unfortunately we turned left instead of right.

The first warning of our mistake was that the kayaks' seam lines were closer to the water, and talking of water,

Ben Nevis and Corpach Pier.

We had come to photograph Ben Nevis (1344m) and were not optimistic, given the thick cloud that had enveloped the upper slopes of Scotland's highest mountain during our approach. From November to January the mountain's summit is in the clouds for 80% of the time. So we could not believe our luck when a weather window opened and the summit and magnificent northern corrie were revealed.

The great

Better days in Corpach.

Arriving in Loch Linnhe we almost immediately came to a large pier that runs for nearly 500m out to the deep water channel. It was built to service a large wood pulp mill which operated her from the 1960's until it closed in 1980. At its peak 900 people worked there. There is still a paper mill and a saw mill on the site.

Fort William and Corpach have reinvented themselves as the UK's outdoor

Reminiscent of a river: the Loch Eil narrows.

As we approached the tidal narrows at the mouth of Loch Eil...

...the summit of Ben Nevis was still lost in the clouds.

In the narrows, the west going flood starts at -0435 HW Oban (+0220 HW Dover) and the east going ebb starts at  +0130 HW Oban (-0400 HW Dover). The spring rate in both directions is 5 knots. We were in the narrows an hour before the end of the ebb and were surprised to be

A welcome break at Ganavan.

We followed the Argyll coast across the sweep of Ganavan Bay and landed at its NE end.The other end of the beach has beautiful sands but was crowded with walkers from Oban enjoying the first sunny day of the year. We chose to land at the quiet end and did not mind the cobbles.We were rather hot and parched because we were all in dry suits, with multiple thermals underneath.So it was a great

The Boathouse, Kingairloch, Morvern

It always amuses me when I see people packing food and drink for their first sea kayaking expedition to Scotland's wonderful west coast. They imagine that such a magnificent, primeval landscape will be as a desert, with little opportunity for resupply or refreshment. But in truth, there chinks in the landscape's armour, little oases, like this one at Kingairloch at the head of Loch a' Choire.