I did not expect it to be so quiet for my first visit

[jamesl2play]

[Douglas Wilcox]

What? Not even any music???

:o)

Douglas

[jamesl2play]

Sorry Douglas, I am tone deaf and I am not joking.

[soundoftheseagull]

Love that place magical

[Helen M]

Hiya James - nice to meet you! lol. It was a fantastic day wasn't it - although I have to say the paddle from Fidden to Staffa was too long for my liking! I was in the double with Dave. We're back home now - totally shattered - don't think we've ever had so long a period with no wind and wall to wall sun. What fantastic conditions.

H -x

[bobt]

Ok. I realise that this must be some strange rite of passage, like a masonic handshake or something -if you know where this is then you are a fully paid up member of the Sea kayaking elite.

...But can someone please tell me where it is, I won't tell anyone else, honest ;-)

[maryinoxford]

Staffa. Fingal's Cave. (Inner Hebrides, off the Isle of Mull.)

I've been there several times on tourist boats, but I've never paddled there.

[bobt]

Staffa. Fingal's Cave. (Inner Hebrides, off the Isle of Mull.)

I've been there several times on tourist boats, but I've never paddled there.

Thanks

[jamesl2play]

Hi Helen, how nice to put faces to the names of people on here. It was a fantastic weekend was't it. Mull is such a great place to paddle and to tick off Iona and Staffa in one weekend was a real bonus.

Good effort on the paddle from Fidden, well done to you and Dave.

We moved to the campsite with the toilet block through the woods that you mentioned. Fidden was too busy for us. There were four paddlers camped on Ulva who we met on the way back to Ulva Ferry. I would not be surprised if they are registered on here too.

[Jim]

It is much noisier if there is a bit of swell running - whilst we were stormbound on Staffa I didn't have the inclination to go in whilst the F8 was howling (frankly I was ensconsed in my hooped bivvi on the remains of a wrecked shed base on the shore because the wind up top had already flattened the bivvi breaking the smaller pole, and it was raining - yes, all 3 days) and it would have been pretty dicey, but when the storm had abated and I went and sat in it for a while, it is properly awesome!

Bobt - Fingals cave is famous throughout the world for it's noises:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fingal%27s_Cave

Staffa is also said to be the other end of the Giants causeway - a famous columnar basalt outcrop in Northern Ireland which a large part of their tourist industry is based on (I'm exagerating there, but it is a major tourist trap), having visited both I rate Staffa as the better sight. The legend of the causeway is that the giant Fingal was tried to build a causeway from Ireland to Scotland, based on the fact that the tops ofthe hexagonal columns look like paving stones heading out into the sea (clearly the legend is not concerned that the piece on Staffa is facing Mull rather than Ireland).

These aren't the only places in the world with columnar basalt, I seem to bump into it all over the place and it is always intriguing, they probably are some of the best examples of dead straight columns in vertical alignment though.

[JohnML]

Nice pictures. Two photos from a paddle to Staffa last year with a nice mix of swell, wind and rain. Took a fair while to emerge from the murk on the day:





Needless to say we didn't really see much of the columns, but it does mean there will be a next time!