One of the those days in the Minch
July 18, 2008 on 12:22 pm | In Powerboating and Jet boating, Uncategorized | No Comments
I guess we all have those days when you leave the house thinking you are going to do one thing and come back thinking ‘did that really just happen?’
On Wednesday morning I left the house with a small packed lunch and headed over the top of the island towards Uig. The week had been a bit confused with the weather forcing me to cancel a day of sea kayaking with clients, it was too windy. So I was driving over to go out and learn the ropes on Murray’s new boat Lochlann. I am skippering her at the beginning of August for a few days.
Alongside this I had a job as safety adviser to a TV company (www.mojatv.co.uk) to cover the crew filming Naill Iain Macdonald on his attempt to row across the Minch. I was not responsible for the safety of the crossing just the film crew.
At Miavaig, I was drinking tea and catching up with Murray, who owns SeaTrek, before he was due to go off to drive his RIB with the film crew to capture the start of Niall Iain’s trip. It was one of those; the weather, which forced me to cancel, had forced them to cancel. So chaos rained. I had had several long conversations late in the previous evenings with Kenny from MojaTV about what was going to happen.
Then we heard from the TV crew the attempt was going ahead but there was no safety boat to shadow Niall Iain. This put Murray and I in a difficult position as Murray would be returning with the film crew and in the worse case, the crossing went wrong, the question would be asked of Murray and I why Niall Iain was left alone? So I called the TV company and let them know I would not let Murray follow the trip as I felt it was unsafe not to have safety cover.
This threw a spanner in the works and a flurry of phone calls followed. The eventual up shot was the boat with the TV crew would return to Stornoway, drop off the crew, then go back out to provide the safety cover for the rest of the crossing. The problem now was Murray needed a guarantee to be back for 5pm on Thursday. So I drew the job of driving the boat, a quick call home and then an urgent call for crew. Anna’s brother John Alec was home and he has boat driving experience so the press gang were sent round to collect him.
By 1300 we were sitting outside the harbour with a TV crew and the boat going up and down like the proverbial bucking bronco.
After running the crew back to dry land, John Alec and I settled down to crossing the Minch at 3 knots (3 nautical miles per hour) 42 miles (we did wonder if this was a record for the slowest powered crossing).
The first few hours were fine as we pootled round the boat getting settled in and everything sorted. There is only so much interest you can get from watching seabirds and someone rowing, eventually resulting in creeping boredom.
We tried to find a drum to create a beat for Niall Iain to row faster. We ran through all the songs to do with rowing and began to come up with scenarios to end it faster. They were funny at the time; ‘Micheal Row Your Boat Ashore’ and John Alec suggestion of the Gaelic song ‘S truagh nach do dh’fhuirich mi tioram air tir’ which translates to ‘Shame I didn’t stay on dry land’.
As the sun set we watched Niall Iain become weary and the pain start to set in. His rowing slowed and the rests grew in length. He was being pushed in the right direction by the wind but his speed decreased.
John Alec and I sat, drank tea and ate crisps. We had made a decision, as Niall Iain wanted to do a solo trip, to not speak to him unless it concerned safety. It is hard to watch someone sit with their head in their hands in obvious distress.
The night drew on and eventually we arrived at the Summer Isles. The wind had dropped and the drizzle had set in. It was unpleasant.
Niall Iain struggled with tiredness. I think he was unable to decide his route through the islands and so time for a ‘ powernap’. While he was sleeping John Alec and I were sitting, hoods up, nursing a cup of tea when within 15 feet of Niall Iain’s boat a Minke Whale (BalaenopteramAcutorostrata) blew and there was a small pod of harbour porpoises (phocoena phocoena) feeding near by.
The sun brightened the air but mist held it heavy about us.
As the rowing continued we entered the mouth of Loch Broom and slowly from behind us the weather started to clear with the scenery of the Loch gradually being revealed from under a blanket.
As we passed the islands guarding the mouth proper, we were treated to a pod of short beaked common dolphins (Delphinus delphis) feeding round us and as we put some speed on to move away they began to bow ride. With the boat moving, it creates a pressure wave at the front and the dolphins surf this, jumping out of the water and swooping in from the side of the boat. It is spectacular display and never fails to raise my pulse rate.
Finally we arrived at the pier in Ullapool and an exhausted Niall Iain was whisked away in a media scrum.
We, meantime, nipped to the cafe, ate a hearty breakfast, at two in the afternoon, checked the boat over and set off. If only it was as simple as just to return to Stornoway.
The boat had to be in Leverburgh for a trip Friday morning.
Tough? No, the Minch was like a sheet of glass and we ran south at 28 to 29 knots across to the Shaints and then to Ranish Point, treated to another Minke we turned into the Sound of Harris before mooring the boat up in Leverburgh. John Alec who lives in London commented as we hurled through the picture postcard ‘it is going to be impossible to explain this when I get back to work’
Picking up Ruari’s car at the pier, retrieving my car from Stornoway, delivering Ruari’s car to Murray, dropping off John Alec, I arrived home 24 hours later than I had expected wondering if it had all been for real. I am still wondering as in the rush I forgot to take my camera …
Tim Pickering
http://www.canoehebrides.com
Living in the world's biggest adventure playground - The Outer Hebrides
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Busy Busy Busy
July 13, 2008 on 8:25 pm | In Sea Kayaking, Uncategorized | No Comments
As I have written before, it is that time of year again when I am flat out, nose to the grind stone. Last week saw me out paddling with clients in Loch Roag for four days, then two days of powerboat training and still trying to keep up with the office work. Saturday was mostly a write off as I spent it doing the accounts !
Today I managed to get out for a run on the moors out to the back of the village with Alex, it was pure pleasure although the pain of running just made the colours more vivid.
As you become familar with a place you start to notice the smaller things. The heather is starting bloom and the purples are, even in todays flat light, so vivid and in such a contrast to the browns and greens of the moor. The butter cups are out, looking like a yellow paint brush has been dappled across the crofts and this year there seems to be huge amounts of ‘bog cotton’ giving the appearance of patches of snow across the landscape.
After the paddling there are a few pictures (there were over two hundred before the edit) here a couple of the nice ones:
Little Bernera Beach
The Caribbean?
Graveyard Little Bernera
Sunset over Old Hill
Tim Pickering
http://www.canoehebrides.com
Living in the world's biggest adventure playground - The Outer Hebrides
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Oban to Stornoway
June 13, 2008 on 8:37 pm | In Sea Kayaking, Uncategorized | No Comments
I have returned from what was a long weekend. From where I left off:
I am afraid it looks like I am off on a rant.
Oban is an odd place if you come from the Outer Hebrides, it is stuffed full of tourists. It seemed the world and his wife ride there on their motorbikes, which for me as a petrol-head makes for a great spectator sport.
I had dinner in the EE-Usk restaurant on the front, the place was great and the service was OK however no one asked me if the meal was good, they just took my card ran it through the machine and wanted me out to get the next set of customers in and I am sorry to say the fish wasn’t cooked, sad because the part which was, tasted fantastic.
The Sunday saw us roll up at Kilbowie for the 4* conversion course. A quick history as I understand it:
The BCU, British Canoe Union, have restructured their awards for personal paddling skills and the way the coaching scheme is done, I am not saying it wasn’t needed but the way it has been done has left a lot of paddlers wondering if they should bother.
There are two sides to the scheme the personal skills side are the star tests which are a measure of how competent you are in your personal paddling and the other is the coaching scheme to develop your abilities to teach paddling.
We spent the morning talking with Gordon Brown of Skayak Adventures who has been writing most of the elements. I saw his notes and they made perfect sense, I then read the BCU guidelines and they is seems had been written by a dyslexic monkey.
I sit in an odd position as I am a professional guide but most of my coaching is done through Stornoway Canoe Club. This means I need the coaching qualifications for the club rather than the business. The guiding qualifications for the business, now I have them, never go out of date but the coaching ones I have to get renewed - annually.
So here is the rub, I don’t have to pay anything to do my professional work but I have to pay to be validated for the ones I use as a volunteer…
We were under the impression we were going to attend the course and then we would be able to carry on assessing 4* in the same way we have for the last ten years, but no. We have to watch a training course being run, we have to watch an assessment being done and we have to do an orientation day to teach navigation and then we have to have someone watch us run an assessment - minimum seven days. Oh and we can’t double up, so each one has to be for each person seperately. I am likely to only to use this for the club so how is the club going to finance four of us through this?
So, if we chose not to do it? No new 4* paddlers in the club, it is a pre-requisite for becoming a coach or guide in these waters so no new qualified coaches or guides unless they are prepared to travel to the mainland and pay for a minimum of four day coaching and a two day assessment just to get to the door.
I believe the BCU have got this seriously wrong and they risk alienating clubs. The clubs are the breeding ground for new paddlers who go on to become the coaches of the future. Sea kayaking is growing sport and shouldn’t we be making it accessable not more expensive and difficult?
It wasn’t all bad on a personal level, the afternoon was spent paddling in the tide race at the Falls of Lora under the Connell Bridge, I was trying to work out the last time I paddled there and it was over 15 year ago in a rotabat, (which older paddlers will remember). I got trashed then and so nothing changes except the trashings leave you aching more the next day.
The Falls of Lora are a tide race created under the bridge where the contents of Loch Etive and its tributary lochs empty through a narrow gap. There is a shelf and when the water rushes over it creates huge (and scarey) hydrolic feature. This includes on the right tides, a big standing wave followed by a massive wave train, some very exciting boils and whirlpools. It makes for a great spectator sport from the dry warmth of the bank. There is web site Falls of Lora where all the details of when it is working at its best can be found and some pictures, I was too busy trying to stay in the boat to get the camera out!
Gordon gave us some excellent pointers on using the water there for coaching.
So was it worth the club spending over £600 for the three of us to go there? The jury is still out, it was great to paddle and good to get up to speed with Gordon was very useful (as always) but in terms of coach development …
Tim Pickering
http://www.canoehebrides.com
Living in the world's biggest adventure playground - The Outer Hebrides
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Barra to Oban
June 7, 2008 on 10:43 am | In Uncategorized | 1 Comment
It was early evening when the Clansman sailed out of Castlebay and I was concerned it was going to be one of those long ferry crossings which seem to go on for ever, I admit I did get bored a couple of times, it is five hours, but once we passed Coll and entered the Sound of Mull it was stunning. The sun set leaving the sky glowing a hue of pink with turquoise clouds. Mull had a few clouds shrouding its summit and there wasn’t a ripple on the water.
I was trying to remember the last time I sailed through and I think it was over ten years ago. I came through on the Lorne Leader, a 100 foot Brixham Trawler she was over a hundred years old. We tied to against the peir in Tobermory and had a wild evening in the Mishnish. As we came to the end of the Sound I remembered sailing with groups and camping at Inninmore Bay on the 28 foot cutters from Outward Bound. There used to be a wee bothy there and you could camp near and sit on the porch just taking in the scene.
On the ferry I managed to get started on two more trips for the guide book and a couple of pints from the bar.
In Oban, I am staying in the Oban Backpackers which is I think part of the MacPackers group and is good as hostels go, in the middle of town, clean, it does have great showers and a wireless connection.
We are off to Kilbowie Outdoor Centre for an upgrade course tommorrow to allow us to run 4* sea kayaking courses under the new scheme. It is all very confusing so I am hoping Gordon is going to make it clear tommorrow. I hope so or I will be ranting on in the next few days.
Tim Pickering
http://www.canoehebrides.com
Living in the world's biggest adventure playground - The Outer Hebrides
CanoeHebrides.com - Sea kayaking Expeditions
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Adventuring in the City
May 11, 2008 on 9:00 pm | In Uncategorized | No Comments
It is our tenth wedding anniversary and I decided to take Anna on a surprise trip. I would have liked to do some hard core adventuring but as I am look forwards to another 10 years I thought better we opt for the weekend in Glasgow with some soft adventure.
I love Glasgow, the architecture is stunning and I wander round looking up, like you see the tourists in New York doing, except Glasgow is prettier. The people always appear to me to be more friendly than in Edinburgh and the airport is closer to the centre of town.
I booked a suite in One Devonshire Gardens in the west end and we had dinner there on the Friday evening. Over the years I have had the pleasure and displeasure of staying in many hotels and I think they gave one of the best experiences I have had. I have been trying to think why that was and have come to the conclusion it was the staff.
All to often the staff don’t look you in the eye or you can tell they are bored or not enjoying their job. This was not the case here, to a person they were always smiling, friendly and would go out of their way to be helpful. If this had been my first experience of Scotland I would have left with a very positive image.
We also went out to the Burrell Collection and with out the children we were able to amble round and really spend time studying the collection, I love my kids but it is nice to have some time recharging the culture batteries. What I was most fascinated with by the collection was the paintings, we turned one corner and almost missed the Rembrandt ! I will be taking the children next time we are down.
Our anniversary dinner was in the Ubiquitous Chip in Ashton Lane just off the Byres Road and over the years Anna and I have eaten there many times, consistently it has been great food and good service, it was no different this time.
I think there is much to be learned from all three of these experiences to be passed down even to the little lady in her B&B. Sadly, particularly here in the Outer Hebrides, there are so few places where I can recommend knowing my clients will have a fantastic experience.
Tim Pickering
http://www.canoehebrides.com
Living in the world's biggest adventure playground - The Outer Hebrides
CanoeHebrides.com - Sea kayaking Expeditions
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Marketing Groups
April 28, 2008 on 5:32 pm | In Uncategorized | No Comments
I have had one of those days when I have been playing catch up and all these interesting letters and e-mails surface when you clear the desk.
I was particularly struck by two marketing groups one is Hidden Lewis which is a group I belong to and its aim is to promote the things to do and see in Lewis and the other is Winter Harris, which I have an entry on which is to promote visitors to Harris in the off season, although I suspect there is also the aim to get people to come year round.
These small marketing projects are great examples of how the internet can help ‘the long tail’ effect generate business for people like us who live on the periphery.
Tim Pickering
http://www.canoehebrides.com
Living in the world's biggest adventure playground - The Outer Hebrides
CanoeHebrides.com - Sea kayaking Expeditions
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A Dinner of Two Halves
April 4, 2008 on 9:00 pm | In Uncategorized | No Comments
After a week in Uist eating out each evening I am ready to go home to pasta, there are only some many meals out you can have. It has been a ‘meal’ of two halves with using the Dark Island Hotel (the DI) and then the Orasay Inn and finally Langass Lodge for my culinary tour.
After being out running I was looking forwards to a good meal and beer but the DI I am sorry to say was not a shining example of cusine. One meal was swimming in gravy into which they must have spilt the salt pot. And sadly none of my three meals were the ‘great food’ of the web site.
The Orasay Inn began to restore my spirits in the food of Uist and the fish was well cooked and tasty. I had been wanting to go out paddling but the weather wasn’t great as I needed to take the camera so the meal helped to salvage the day.
Finally as I headed north today, I decided I would stop at Langass Lodge, I have heard much about it but never quite made it there. As I needed to stop and look at the neolithic sites and take some pictures, I thought it would be a good opportunity. The place starts well with a great ambience and then a friendly welcome. The fish which was fresh from Barra was very tasty and a fitting end to a walk on the hill.
Tim Pickering
http://www.canoehebrides.com
Living in the world's biggest adventure playground - The Outer Hebrides
CanoeHebrides.com - Sea kayaking Expeditions
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Accident report
March 24, 2008 on 11:25 am | In Uncategorized | No Comments
I blogged a while ago about the terrible accident which occurred in Uist involving a powerboat accident. The Marine Accident Investigation has been completed and the report is now available for reading.
MAIB report
It makes very sobering reading.
Tim Pickering
http://www.canoehebrides.com
Living in the world's biggest adventure playground - The Outer Hebrides
CanoeHebrides.com - Sea kayaking Expeditions
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Outdoor Show
March 18, 2008 on 9:23 pm | In Uncategorized | No Comments
I am just back from the Outdoor Show in Birmingham where I was on the Visit Scotland stand. It was an interesting experience.
The show this year didn’t seem as well attended as when I was last there two years ago. There was a couple of paddling stands but not many, so from that point it was a little disappointing.
However the were several things which were very positive, there were many people who came up and said they were coming to the Outer Hebrides this year and what was there to do, so of course Chris (from Clear Water Paddling) and I obliged by telling them all about the adventures which await them.
There were also a lot of people who wanted to know about a trip next year and they were very interested when we were able to tell them about the Road Equivalent Tariff (RET) and the reduction in price this will mean to the ferry fares.
I saw quite a few people I knew. Landrover had a G4 vehicle there as they are opening entries for the next big race and if you want to know more of how you could get the free trip of a life time visit the web site (Landrover G4 Challenge).
However the most scarey thing was I saw a young man who I taught on an Outdoor Course many years ago and he was telling me of is paddling exploits in Nepal and Africa and how he works for a few months then goes off paddling for the next six. Sound fantastic but made me fell very old !
Finally, the people who were on the stand were very interesting I learned a lot about a very eclectic ‘list’ of things from economics to gap years to cheap restaurant meals. Lots of ‘food ‘ for thought.
Tim Pickering
http://www.canoehebrides.com
Living in the world's biggest adventure playground - The Outer Hebrides
CanoeHebrides.com - Sea kayaking Expeditions
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More on the Ferries
February 27, 2008 on 3:33 pm | In Uncategorized | No Comments
It gets more interesting as now it appears the new fares won’t start until the autumn. So that is this year’s seaason still at the old prices.
There are mutterings that it is political rouse who knows as long as the fares come down, it would be good to have the fares over all the islands not just the Outer Hebrides doing the same.
Tim Pickering
http://www.canoehebrides.com
Living in the world's biggest adventure playground - The Outer Hebrides
CanoeHebrides.com - Sea kayaking Expeditions
BikeHebrides.com -Quality Mountain Bike Hire
