Driftstuff fires?

[Jim]

Having successfully returned from the Summer Isles and beyond (I really need to peel off my clothes, take a long bath and then attempt to desalinate my gear so this will be a short one!) I thought I would leave the report for later (maybe Nigel will do it for me?) but ask the most pertinent question right away?

Of all the things you've found washed up on beaches, what do you find gives the best fires? We need to rate this in terms of:
- Heat
- Brightness
- Sparks
- Smoke
- Burn times

Driftwood was plentiful in the summer isles (if you are going later this year - sorry!), but seems to spit a lot and burns at a ferocious rate even when you manouevre a couple fo 20 foot logs onto the fire - what should you look for in spark free driftwood, and what other drift materials do you recommend?

JIM

[graeme]

Jim,
during my trips around many of the western isles
I have managed to burn almost everything & anything
as you commented about wood being dry & fast burning
I am sure you have discovered that wet wood on the islands is VERY WET & wont burn.
One banker when no wood can be found is the plastic fishing float about the size of a football, broken bits are good to get a fire going but the smoke is just the worst.
We did also burn some ones paddles on the west of Jura
when he was not looking, but they were bust
Graeme

[Jim]

Didn't see many of those floats, several chunks of nets attached to pieces of otterboard that we wanted to burn, loads of rope and more plastic barrels than you can shake a stick at.

We thought we might be doing the islands a favour by burning off some of this plastic waste material, although one member of the group explained how the phenols given off are highly toxic and will get into the ecosystem and kill dolphins, not to mention those of us sitting downwind (and at sometime everyone is). A plastic barrel seems to be a good way to create some intense heat, light, and black smoke full of phenols for 10 minutes or so, we got through quite a few of these, although we bottled out on the ones that were full of oil. A couple of the lads spent a rest day trying to work out how to burn the oil directly and a pipe systen was run up the rocks to a header tank from where oil could be dripped into the fire. It didn't really work out (and was very smoky) so we went back to just throwing processed oil products (plastic barrels and rope) on instead.

Fortunately having a low tolerance of thick black smoke, and always being tired I managed to retire early when the adventurous stuff went on the fires, I beleive quite a large buoy was burned at one point, and the stories from the tractor tyre are awesome, apparantly it burst with a loud bang (didn't wake me up) and sent a 10 foot jet of flame out transversely towards some of the guys....
And one morning we noticed a pile of glass fibres in the ashes and had to do a boat count!

What we are looking for is a drift material that burns like a plastic barrel, with the same intense heat and light (yes all our clothes are full of spark holes) but with a longer burn time and less toxic smoke?

It's no wonder I was kept awake one night by a coastguard helicopter - probably thought it was a distress beacon fire or something!

JIM

[Mike B]

Hmm - excuse me just a mo - this horse is kinda high :)

Not quite sure how burning off vast quantities of plastic, rubber and assorted other junk fits with the concept of low-impact camping let alone environmentalism - - - - - :rolleyes

Still, at least you had a fire! My mates on my trip weren't into fires, even though we were in a very nice bothy with a superb fireplace on one night and another nice bothy with a wood burning stove the second night!

Well, THEY were - I was evicted to my tent - something to do with a chainsaw they said but I couldn't hear it!

:rollin Mike

[Jim]

Bothies on Raasay and Rona?

Come to think of it they were finishing a bunkhouse on Rona last year when we were there (we camped up behind the house), but I can't think where a bothy on Raasay would be other than towards the Southern end on the west side - that would probably mean missing out the "lost world" East coast of Raasay though, unless you had some superbly long trips? Mind you with Easterly (or NE) winds most of last week you probably didn't want to be on the East coast anyway?

As for the environmental aspects of burning hydrocarbons, we figured that a little local ozone layer damage would help to maintain the good weather we'd been having......

JIM

[Mike B]

The Rona bothy is part of the "store" near the landing - a bit basic of course, but the £5 does also get you the shower at the house. Rona is well worth the visit - Church Cave, the Settlement (very "st Kildaish" etc etc.

The Raasay bothy is at the North end - only snag is that its a 10 min walk from the beach! Very nice place though.

We paddled across to Raasay just before midnight on day 1 and did the East coast trip on day 2 - up to Rona in the hope of getting to the Good Friday service in Church Cave (1st in 30 years apparantely) but just missed it. Back to Raasay bothy - 36kms or thereabouts.

Then up and round Rona on day 3, overnighting in the Rona bothy.

Then a lumpy, bumpy run back down the West Coast on day 4, with a wee stop off on her Maj's favourite beach. Back over on day 5 morning and the slog back to Dumfries.

Lovely, lovely area. Not too many landing or camping areas for a big(ish) group though!

[chris]

I understand Mike's concern about the environmental impact of burning the plastic - but to look at it the other way, it's an environmental hazard to start with. Dolphins etc can get caught up in bits of net, and swallow plastic, and nobody likes to land on a beach covered in rubbish. So we've often burnt the rubbish to try to clean the place up a bit - it would be ideal to take it home to recycle, but there's no space in the boats....