The Surprise Scottish Summer (Part one)

Playing with tall ships in the Summer Isles. Heaven unfiltered.

One of the best parts of my job is looking out to sea and feeling the warm sun on my back, the glassy, gentle carpet of the ocean moving ever so slowly. The only ripple is that of the vortex made by the vessel’s thrusters as they move a few degrees to port.

What an incredible day this would be for sea kayaking, I thought.

Luckily for me, I had thought ahead and decided that the month of May would be a good time to drive up to Aberdeen to work, instead of taking the usual flight.

I had chucked some basic camping gear in the car and my sea kayak on the roof, with a view to doing a couple of days paddling on the west coast of Scotland either before or after my trip.

As I drove towards Largs on the west coast, my planned overnight stop, the weather was not at all favourable. It was throwing it down with rain, very windy and the clag spoiled the view of Great Cumbrae island, my planned paddle the next morning.

I rocked up at Largs Yacht Haven, which was a friendly enough spot, allowing campervans to stop overnight without much hassle. It was also an easy launch to the slipway from the car.

Largs was familiar to me as I had once spent several weeks aboard a drilling ship moored there for a time, before sailing down to Gran Canaria. It looked like an idyllic place to paddle for me and a bit more accessible than the stunning Hebridean Islands on the west coast.

But the weather was not to be.

Unperturbed, I ignored at as ‘it didn’t seem that bad’ and launched my boat trying to make the best of the wind and tide on the return journey.

It took me a long time to cross over to the shores of Great Cumbrae, both against tide and wind and it was a miserable crossing. It crossed my mind several times to just quit. But quitting isn’t in my nature and anyway, it would soon get better once I was round the corner and tucked in by Millport.

It didn’t.

As I turned the southwest corner of the island the wind barged me violently into the rocks all the way along the west coast of the island before finally carrying me reluctantly across the path of the Caledonian ferry and some 4 hours and 18 kilometres later, back to the shores of Largs.

It was a miserable trip and my injured arm really struggled with it. There’s a lesson there somewhere. Sometimes you just have to say ‘not today’. One day I might learn.

I headed up to Aberdeen for an early crew change, parking my van at the work office car park. It drew quite a bit of attention with a bright red sea kayak perched on the roof!

I usually work on board a Diving Support Vessel for 4 weeks at a time. But, being the fickle north sea diving industry, things don’t always go to plan.

Departing Seven Kestrel by crew boat.

After a few weeks, a gap in the work schedule meant many of us were, with very little notice, sent home.

For many of us on day rate, this means a significant loss of earnings.

But, always looking for a silver lining, this meant I suddenly had an extra week on my hands – in Scotland, in the most glorious heatwave – and I had my van, kayak and camping kit!

Being holiday season, I couldn’t get a ticket on a single ferry to any of the Hebridean Islands, so I hurriedly worked through my ‘Scottish Sea Kayaking’ book and in combination with Google maps, made a plan of sorts. I would start locally, test my kit and follow the weather.

I had weeks of freedom ahead, no ties and the whole of Scotland at my disposal.

Prior to my trip I had booked some tickets along with first offshore bosses, Toni and Gail, to go to the Tall Ships event in Aberdeen. There was a Ministry of Sound Orchestra concert on the Saturday night and the only thing I needed to do was get back to the east coast for that.

Toni kindly took some parcels for me as my plans evolved. A crew boat approached the Seven Kestrel in the gloriously hot weather, the sea sparkling and I analysed the coastline in front of me that I would soon be exploring in my sea kayak.

We alighted in Macduff and were taken by coach to Aberdeen where I collected my car. Toni greeted me with rather more items than I’d stated (sorry Toni!) and after a quick foray to Asda for food and Decathlon to buy some items I hadn’t brought for a week’s worth of nomad lifestyle, I set off towards Aberdour Beach.

This seemed like a good place to stop for the night. It is an unofficial campervan stopover, and I anticipated it wouldn’t be too busy. How wrong I was!

Aberdour Bay

An entire village of gazebos had set themselves up at the far end of the beach on the grass, so I avoided them and found a decent spot for my van among the others.

I couldn’t resist getting into the clear waters for a swim, so got into my wetsuit and did a quick excursion across the bay. Kids messed around in inflatables; families had a go at (unsuccessfully) standing on SUPs and dogs chased sticks and stones until sunset.

Everyone seemed friendly and I settled in for the night with some wine and a front row seat, sea view.

My first plan was to ‘play it safe’ especially with my dodgy shoulder. I looked at the tides and figured an out and back camping trip was best done from Gardenstown, or ‘Gamrie’ as it’s known. This little harbour was a pleasant little place and I dragged my boat round to the slipway before carrying a night’s worth of camping kit and loading it up while I waited for the nice ladies at the little cafe to create me some breakfast and coffee.

I dutifully paid my harbour launching dues and as I finished prepping my boat I was approached purposefully by a guy.

Here we go. Have I paid? Have I got permission? Let’s harass the woman on her own…

I was so used to this behaviour in England my hackles went straight up.

But no need. This guy just wanted a chin wag and had no clue about harbour dues. He was English but had lived locally in Gamrie for ages. He had also worked offshore for a time. Chatting delayed me setting off, but it was pleasant and a nice half an hour spent given I was spending most of my time alone. I started to relax. I had all the time in the world to enjoy the moment.

Troup Head

I paddled out of the crystal clear, green hued water of the harbour, avoiding children dive bombing from the harbour walls. I headed east and picked up a bit of a head wind. As I crossed the bay, passing the small village of Crovie, I headed for some nice-looking sea caves at the start of Troup Head.

Troup Head is an RSPB reserve. It has the largest Gannet colony on mainland Scotland, along with Puffins (my favourite) Kittiwakes, Guillemots and Razorbills. There are plenty of seals but in my typical ‘wildlife repellent’ style, I didn’t see a single porpoise, Otter or whale.

The sea was sparkling and I could see the bottom. This was an absolute paradise and I just couldn’t believe how lucky I was to have both the weather and the opportunity.

Caves near Crovie, Scotland.

As I rounded Troup head the noise was deafening. Birds of all types screeched and cawed and screamed at each other. Gannets dive bombed in front of me and puffins bobbed about eyeing me warily. The cliffs were plastered from top to bottom with white guano and fluffy gannet and gul chicks peeked out from their lofty nests.

The place was noisy and it stank, but it was amazing.

I paddled in and out of scenic little gullies, dodging the katabatic winds that poured down off the cliffs, whipping up little squalls that grabbed at my paddle and tried to turn my boat around. This was going to be slightly harder work than I expected and was forecast. My arm struggled a bit, and I took refuge in the many little gullies, joined by the odd seal pup.

Snack stop

I pulled into a pretty little cove for a break and a snack then carried on around to Aberdour.

Camping on the beach where I’d stayed the night before didn’t seem like much of an adventure, but I was playing it safe with my arm in case for some reason I wasn’t able to paddle back, at least I was in contact with some sort of civilisation.

It was a tad windy when I arrived and all the decent grassy camping spots had been taken, so I pitched up away from everyone else on the beach. For some reason I thought pitching a tent on a rocky beach would be easy.

About an hour of kite flying later I managed to get my small tent and excruciatingly overpriced MSR tarpaulin up – but it was a struggle. The tent pegs were useless, so I resorted to cave diving tactics and made some wraps round some big boulders. This only worked for a while though as the wind had other ideas and systematically ruined my plan by picking up the tent and the tarp and dragging even the biggest rocks along the beach.

I was treated to a fabulous red sunset that evening, but an almost sleepless night as I wrestled with the tent flapping noisily, pulling at the useless rock anchors.

I would need to come up with a better plan than this in the future if I was going to wild camp around Scotland from my boat. In fact, the only reliable anchor was my boat.

Morning came and the lack of sleep was unwelcome. I packed everything up and dragged the boat back down to the water to launch.

My journey back to Gamrie was significantly quicker as the wind was now mostly behind me, but the squalls still whipped up and made life difficult without any warning. I still shaved an hour off my time heading back over the 12km.

I was exhausted but determined to get on the road to somewhere I had never been before but was excited to visit.