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Duncan Murrell - A Whale of a Time

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Duncan Murrell - A Whale of a Time

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  • Lunga is the largest island in an archipelago of small islands and skerries that stretches roughly 7 kilometres (4.3 m) called the Treshnish Isles. Lunga is designated a Site of Special Scientific Interest because of its abundant plant life. Many rare and endangered plants are native to the island. Plants include primrose, birdsfoot trefoil, orchids, sea campion, sea thrift, sea pinks, yellow flags, tormentil and the oyster plant. The Treshnish Isles are also designated as a Special Protection Area due to their importance for breeding seabirds such as storm-petrels, kittiwakes, Manx Shearwaters, guillemots, puffins and fulmars. They are also a marine Special Area of Conservation and grey seals can be found there along with basking sharks, as I was pleased to discover. I particularly enjoyed watching the seabirds nesting on the precipitous cliffs, and a dramatic sea stack called the Harp Rock separated from the island by a narrow passage. It was hypnotic to watch the real masters of flight like the kittiwakes and fulmars launching from their precarious nests and soaring in graceful arcs in front of the cliffs and above the rocks and meadows.<br />
Lunga was populated up until the 19th century, and to the NE of the island, and just around the rocks to the right of this photo can be found the ruins of the village, which was abandoned in 1857. I often used to sit in amongst the ruins looking out across the sea dotted with vegetated skerries towards Mull and the mainland wondering what it must have been like to live there. I camped there for a week, and it was a wonderful place to live during the good weather of the short Scottish summer, but I can imagine how challenging it must have been to eke out a subsistence life there in the past.
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  • This beautiful view is along the cliffs at the southwest end of the island with the offshore skerries and Atlantic Ocean in the distance. I also watched basking sharks from that side of the island and saw some dolphins just offshore. It was one of my favourite palces to watch the fulmars demonstrating their aerial skills. This was the windward side of the island facing the turbulence and swells of the open ocean, and a magnificent location to look down at the waves crashing forcefully against the rocks below. There was the occasional boat that visited the island during the time that I stayed there but most of the time I had it to myself, and it gave me a wonderful feeling of coastal maritime solitude that I have rarely, if ever, experienced in the UK. I could have stayed there for at least another month but there were still other islands to visit and explore on this trip.
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  • Another view at the southern end of the island. I used to love walking in this direction, down the tussocky slope, with that beautiful seascape before me, and the chain of offshore skerries drawing my eyes out to the distant horizon and beyond. Although I greatly regretted not being able to return to my beloved Southeast Alaska there was more than adequate compensation with views like that, and a reminder that I can find a lot of inspiration from the natural world a lot closer to home.
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  • A patch of wild celery on the northwest side of Isle of Lunga looking northwards towards the offshore skerries.
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  • A sweeping panoramic view at the southern end of the island looking towards a chain of small skerries, that I paddled out to explore. I was camped on the other side of the rocks in the foreground on a grassy ledge overlooking a rocky cove. The cliffs on either side of the last fragment of the island were quite high and very precipitous. This is where I had my next dramatic viewing of basking sharks, because they were swimming very close to the base of the cliff so I was able to look directly down on them, and get a very good impression of their massive size. Once again it was one of those wildlife encounters that is so vividly etched in my memory forever. From my lofty viewpoint I could watch them swimming towards the island and then follow the base of the cliffs as they were feeding.
    Kayaking-West-Coast-Scotland22.jpg
  • I was camped above a rocky cove at the southeast end of the island. Every day I walked around the small island as if I was the laird of my own little dominion. There was a small fairly well trodden trail that I had to be very vigilant on in places because of its proximity to precipitous drops. This photo was taken at the NW end of the island with a view of some of the offshore skerries. I became very familiar with every different aspect of the island, the birds and the plants. In the middle there was an open grass meadow leading up to a terraced outcrop of rock, which may be a volcanic plug as the islands are volcanic in origin. If I wasn’t sitting near a cliff watching the aerial display of the seabirds I was the king of my own little domain sitting on top of my throne surveying the distant ocean and islands.
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  • Once I managed to drag myself away from the feeding basking sharks in Gunna Sound I headed SE to the southern end of Mull and then E to the small island of Lunga not too far off the mainland. The sea conditions were quite moderate and it was a very pleasant paddle highlighted by a most unexpected encounter. Shortly before arriving at Lunga I saw something on the surface with part of it sticking up above the surface and moving quickly. As I got closer I was able to identify the unmistakeable shape and unique means of propulsion of a sunfish. They can grow to a massive size but this was just a very small one. It was the first time that I’ve seen one, although they have been sighted quite frequently along the south coast of England, and even very close to the shore of one of my local beaches in Torbay. I had always associated them with tropical waters and never ever expected to see one that far north, but such is the changing nature of our climate and ocean currents that there will be a concomitant shift in the migratory patterns of many warm water creatures such as turtles. I managed to get close enough to get a good view of its unusual shape and the gyrating “sculling” action of its tail fin but then it disappeared, although it kept returning to the surface, so I could see how it gets its name of sunfish because they are surface baskers like the basking shark, although they are just doing it to feed.<br />
I had very good memories of visiting Lunga by boat during my first trip to the Inner Hebrides in 1990, especially seeing puffins up close for the first time. I was really looking forward to returning there and being able to camp on the island for a while. It is of volcanic origin and has been described as “a green jewel in a peacock sea” and once I was there again I could only echo that poetic description. It is one of the most beautiful places where I have ever camped and a place that I will always dream of returning to.
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  • It was a beautiful place to camp and I spent several days clambering over the offshore rocks and inshore san dunes. There were a lot of shy grey seals that hauled out on the rocks that I tried to get close enough to photograph without disturbing them. Not surprisingly the sea was very cold for swimming but I had brought a wetsuit with me for snorkelling. There was plenty of driftwood to collect on the beaches so I had some spectacular fires on the beach at night to cook my dinner under the glittering canopy of stars.
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  • I had plenty of good weather to enjoy this beautiful, isolated location. I didn’t see anybody while I was there and very few boats passed by. Most of the marine vegetation was the same as what I was used to in my home of South Devon, with species such as thrift and white campion. But the summer peaks at an earlier date than South Devon so a lot of the plants had already finished blooming. After about a week I was ready to continue my journey towards my next island destination, Lunga in the Treshnish Isles to the south of the Isle of Mull. I first had to paddle along the east coast of Coll to reach the main settlement on the island, Arinagour, located at the head of Loch Eathara. On the way I stopped for a break and came across a very small dilapidated house on the beach with an old fisherman living in it. He was very welcoming and gave me an insight into an isolated and traditional subsistence lifestyle that seems so far removed from the majority of the UK now. Unfortunately before I could reach Arinagour I encountered my first really bad weather on the trip and I really had to fight to get there safely. It was a good test for the stability of my new kayak, as well as my nerves, because the sea conditions were so horrendously chaotic with waves coming at me from all directions. I can clearly remember being so relieved after entering the stormy loch to see the Caledonian MacBrayne ferry approaching, because up until that point I didn’t see any other boats if a rescue had been necessary. I camped near the shore there and the next day I enjoyed exploring the quaint settlement of houses and shops scattered around the loch before heading off towards Lunga. What a different life they have to most places on the UK mainland. I was used to living in, and visiting isolated island communities in Southeast Alaska, but the communities that I encountered on this trip seemed more removed from the influences of modern amenities – street lights for example.
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  • From Lunga I had to return to Mull and get more provisions in Tobermory before continuing on to the Small Isles – Muck, Eigg, Rum and Canna via Ardnemurchan, the westernmost point on mainland UK. This is a view back towards the mainland and Mull from Fladda, one of the other islands in the Treshnish Isles on the way back to Mull. The other islands and skerries at the south end of the archipelago are Cairn Na Burgh Mor and Cairn na Burgh Beag. I paddled above a lot of seaweed to the south of Lunga and the current was very strong. It was evidently another good area for basking sharks to feed because I encountered two more, but wasn’t able to remain with them for very long. The swells were getting bigger and by the time I reached Treshnish Point on Mull and entered the bay on the other side I knew that it was going to be really hard work, and that I had to really stay focussed to stay in control because the combination of the strong south-westerly wind, strong currents and confused waves was swinging me every which way. The conditions were very similar and just as challenging as when I had to fight to get to Arinagour on Coll. I was very relieved to reach the other side and round Callach Point to find calmer sea conditions. From there it was a much easier paddle to gat back to my campsite in Ardmore Bay at the northern point of Mull.
    Kayaking-West-Coast-Scotland25.jpg
  • A sweeping panoramic view at the southern end of the island looking towards a chain of small skerries, that I paddled out to explore. I was camped on the other side of the rocks in the foreground on a grassy ledge overlooking a rocky cove. The cliffs on either side of the last fragment of the island were quite high and very precipitous. This is where I had my next dramatic viewing of basking sharks, because they were swimming very close to the base of the cliff so I was able to look directly down on them, and get a very good impression of their massive size. Once again it was one of those wildlife encounters that is so vividly etched in my memory forever. From my lofty viewpoint I could watch them swimming towards the island and then follow the base of the cliffs as they were feeding.
    New-Scotland34-Edit.jpg
  • Another view at the southern end of the island. I used to love walking in this direction, down the tussocky slope, with that beautiful seascape before me, and the chain of offshore skerries drawing my eyes out to the distant horizon and beyond. Although I greatly regretted not being able to return to my beloved Southeast Alaska there was more than adequate compensation with views like that, and a reminder that I can find a lot of inspiration from the natural world a lot closer to home.
    New-Scotland35-Edit.jpg