Sea Dreaming

On my recent trip to Scotland I picked up a wonderful book in Inverness called “Argonauts of the Scottish Isles” by Robin Lloyd Jones. The author is a distinguished veteran of the Scottish sea-kayaking scene, with a lifetime`s worth of experience of exploring the tangled coastlines and Hebridean isles of Scotland’s “wild west” coast. This a wonderful book which I can heartily recommend. The narrative covers a series of journeys, undertaken over many years and which lurch rapidly from the humorous, to the beautifully descriptive, to the terrifying, to the poetic and philosophical from one page to the next – perhaps just as fickle and eclectic as the ever-changing light, winds and weather conditions encountered in this part of the world.

I’ve certainly been inspired by reading this; it whisks you away from everyday realities and into a dreamy parallel universe of remote skerries brimming with puffins, otters and seals, through daunting tidal races and whirlpools, to dazzling flower-bedecked machair and driftwood-strewn shell-sand beaches. It also reminded me of some of my own, albeit considerably more modest, jaunts around Scotland’s coastlines, rivers and lochs and inspired me to dig out a few old photos from that era (just around the turn of the Millennium).

So, here are some sunny images, including pictures from Berneray and North Uist in the Outer Hebrides, Assynt, the Summer Isles, Arisaig, Morar, Kintail and the magical Isle of Iona – as we all well know though, the weather’s not always quite so settled on the West Coast of Scotland (where it’s generally far more common to encounter four seasons in a day). At the time I was a member of Fife Sea Kayaking Club, so a few photos are from inspiring club trips and were taken by different members of the group (see link to FSKC below).

Nowadays, I still do some kayaking and canoeing from time to time, albeit on relatively sheltered inland waters close to where I’m living these days. However, these experiences pale into insignificance compared with the stark rawness, the elemental beauty and the ever-changing conditions of wild Scottish coastlines; sometimes benevolent, at other times (like the kelpies), uncompromising, deceptive and beguiling.

Perhaps it’s time to revisit some of those old haunts again soon, to feel the pulse and the latent power of ocean swells; to tune into the songs and the eternal rhythms of the sea.