I recently spent a little time in the Outer Hebrides. This was just my second ever visit. And the first was last year! The original purpose was to see if I could get out to the relatively remote St Kilda archipelago. Unfortunately, that did not materialize. So, looked for alternative adventures. One such was a visit to Seaforth Island.
Seaforth Island is surrounded by salt water, but is 8 kilometres away from the open sea, tucked away up the narrow fjord-like Loch Seaforth. The island also has a traditional Gaelic name of Eilean Shiophoirt.
The island is uninhabited, and may always have been so. Access is by water only.
I first became aware of the island last year. I had walked up the A859 from our accommodation at Ardvourlie to climb Beinn a’Mhuil (and its parent Marilyn, Cearnabhal) from where I had this fabulous view down Loch Seaforth with the island dominating the view.
The island, I believe, is rarely visited. A local farmer will take sheep over for grazing, but there is not much else there apart from passing wildlife. As a Marilyn, it is an intriguing prospect and a prized “bag”.
This year I had arranged accommodation at the Scaladale Centre hostel. This is located just over 1 kilometre across the water from the island.
The Scaladale Centre is a great facility for outdoor activities of all kinds. It caters mainly for schools and youth organisations. However, it will accommodate anyone, subject to capacity and availability. Even oldies like me!
So, as I casually asked Tom (the current instructor at the Centre) a couple of days earlier, whether it was feasible to get to the island, he said (bad news) that the Centre’s motorboat was currently out of action but (good news) he could get me out there by kayak.
I pondered this for 24 hours and thought that this was likely to be the only opportunity. And looking at the weather forecast, there seemed just to be a small window before some bad weather rolled in off the Atlantic. Tom agreed, so we arranged to be ready by 8am the following morning.
Now, I have kayaked before, but only on benign freshwater. This was going to be a different experience. We would use a tandem kayak and (unnecessary with my previous experience) waterproof trousers (more like salopettes) and rubber shoes. We put the spare gear in dry bags. The dry bags and walking poles were then securely strapped to the kayak.
There was a launch point just 3 minutes’ drive away from the Centre (where the kayaks were kept in a large shed). And we soon organized ourselves and Tom pushed us off, me seated at the front.
Although the island is just 1 kilometre or so from the launch point, we would have to paddle around two kilometres because the spot we were going to land on is at the southern end of the island. The forecast was for blanket cloud, the risk of showers and a gusty wind. Fortunately, for the crossing, the weather remained fair and the water on the loch was smooth. The occasional sea bird skimmed the water past us.
We paddled for around 40 minutes, and I soon realised that I was having to use muscles that were not used to the particular type of exercise! But we reached the small rocky beach where we could safely leave the kayak and carried it up well above the high-water line.
Now we had to peel off the rubber shoes and waterproof trousers, and put on boots and jackets before starting our climb.
The island has a highpoint elevation of only 217m. There are no paths, but there was evidence of ovine presence. The ground was a mix of bogginess and cropped vegetation as we wended up between occasional rocky ground.
It did not take long to reach the top.
Two cairns near each other mark the top. Other than the loch, the island is surrounded on all sides by higher ground. To the south Toddon and Caiteseal act as gatekeepers to the loch; to the east is the wild, remote Pairc peninsular; to the north-east the terrain falls away to the flatter land of Lewis; and to the west is a ring of higher hills culminating with the island highpoint, Clisham (An Cliseam), 799m. I climbed Clisham last year on a sunny, but windy day.
Tom and I had been nattering the whole way up the climb, marveling at the views and noting that the weather was actually improving. Suddenly out of the corner of my eye I spotted, hovering above us, a raptor. It was a white-tailed eagle. This is a sea eagle which was once almost extinct in the British Isles – White-tailed eagle – Wikipedia and here White-Tailed Eagle Facts | Haliaeetus Albicilla (rspb.org.uk)– now they are not uncommon.
It had its beak pointing into the wind and was able just to hover with small twitches of its wings.
It remained there for a couple of minutes. It did not seem to be interested in us and merely scanned the area before it eventually swooped away. What a sight!
The wind was picking up and there were darker clouds on the horizon now. So, we decided to descend by a slightly different route to the west. But we were soon back down to the beach.
We then had to put back on our waterproof trousers, rubber shoes and buoyancy aids and hopped back into the kayak.
The water was now a lot choppier because of the wind that was blowing into our faces. Instead of going diagonally back across the loch, we made our way to the closest point of Harris. After 20 minutes of choppiness, we found shelter and still water close to the coastline. We followed this for 15 minutes until we rounded the turn towards Bagh Aird a’Mhulaidh when we met the wind and wavelets again. In another 10 minutes we were back at the jetty from which we had started.
It was an enjoyable little adventure. Thanks to Tom for making this possible.
For my other blogs on my trips to the north of Scotland this year, they are:
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