Run out of line but in line with the code, on Ailsa Craig!

We had landed on the north side of Foreland Point on Ailsa Craig, near the old pier.

This old wooden boat had had a rougher landing than we had. Only its transom was showing above the granite boulders. She had clearly seen better days.

We had landed near one of the old quarry workshops. It was here that they cut cylinders of granite from the quarried rock. These were exported to be made into

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

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

Sea kayaking inthe mountains with torpedoes and invisible ink.

By the time Jim and I returned from the shuttle, the tide was well back. We had chosen a launch site beside...

..the old pier at Arrochar and so did not have nearly half a kilometer of sticky black mud to negotiate at the head of Loch Long.

Once on the water, the Phil was dwarfed by the jagged ramparts of the Cobbler. The first of the winter snows clung to the dark rocks of the high corries.

A gelati and a free crossing to Inveraray for peasants, the blind and pilgrims.

Leaving Inveraray Castle, we drifted down the River Aray and reentered the sea at Loch Shira, a side arm of Loch Fyne. Loch Fyne is a deep indentation of the Firth of Clyde which stretches 137km into the mountains of Argyll from the mouth of the Firth. The delightful town of Inveraray was a planned town built by the 3rd Duke of Argyll in the latter half of the 18th century.For the first couple of