Night time rockhopping in the Cuan Sound^

[Douglas Wilcox]

From a previous post...

Mark>

Douglas, something isn't quite right about you.

Mark may have a degree of insight here, but I am not alone....

What happens when you set off Rockhopping in the Cuan Sound at sunset?



Well it gets dark...



and you cant see where you are going!



Full picture set here

Douglas :o)

[ManxKayaker]

Mentalists!

[councildog]

night time kayaking ...........MAD.

[CaileanMac]

Douglas

Mr Cree high & dry I presume? All in the name of gear testing (destruction) again then ;-)

CaileanMac

[Rockpool]

Searching feverously through our Acceptable Use Policy for the terms "High and Dry" and "Malicious Damage"...

Never mind Cree, how’s boat No: 025?

[RichardCree]

You all jump to conclusions, it might not be me!

[CCL]

...then again Richard, the combination of white blades/white hull and orange cag does suggest that it might be you!

Good to see you having fun and I'm glad to know that I'm not the only one who 'tests' their Alaw out ....(ideally not to destruction - though it felt like I did indeed give that a go a couple of times when I had a demo boat!) ; ) Now that I have my own..........?

Here's looking forward to longer days on the water now that the winter solstice has passed. Can't wait
Claire

[Zoe Newsam]

You all jump to conclusions, it might not be me!

Um, there're 3 Rockpools there- and the other black one has a black hull.

Hmmm...

[Douglas Wilcox]

Mark>

Douglas, something isn't quite right about you.

Manxkayaker>

Mentalists

Councildog>

night time kayaking ...........MAD.

Rockpool>

Searching feverously through our Acceptable Use Policy

Well you are all perfectly entitled your your reasoned opinions. But it's just that Largactil just doesn't do it for me any more. And now that I have found like minded companions... after all madness is a purely statistical phenomenon. Who'se to say we are mad and you are not?

Zoe>

Um, there're 3 Rockpools there- and the other black one has a black hull.

Actually Zoe there were 4 Rockpools there, have a look at the
[url=http://www.gla.ac.uk/medicalgenetics/seakayaking_cuan_sound.htm]full picture set here
[/url]

The most common sounds of the day were Crunch, Bang, Scrape and Graaunch coming from (mostly the bottom of) Rockpool boats. Needless to say, none of us ordered a light layup.

You do not have to be mad to own a Rockpool but...

I honestly could not think of any other kayak I would rather have been taking photographs in.

(Though Mr Cree could be heard muttering (over some extended Graunches) something about a polyethylene Alaw Bach!)

Douglas

BANG BANG BANG

What's that at the door?

Oh NOooooo.... they're coming to take me away again......

[Zoe Newsam]

Douglas, I can safely say that you are not mad- and if you are, you're in good company. Night paddling is fantastic- I only wish I had somewhere as lovely as Cuan Sound so close at hand.

Rockpool- for night-paddling tales, come on then- tell us the 'let's go and camp on that rock' story from last summer...;0)

Zoe

[Owen]

Hi Douglas,
Where abouts is that "Snake Rock" I'd like to have a look at that?
I can't tell from a photograph what it is but it looks interesting.

[Douglas Wilcox]

Zoe>

Rockpool- for night-paddling tales, come on then- tell us the 'let's go and camp on that rock' story from last summer...;0)

Hi Zoe, Thank you for your resssurances!!! I am not going to steal Aled's thunder but let's just say, as a preamble, that "That rock" was actually the island above Kenny's head in the above photograph and some of the strongest tides in the Sound of Jura flow this side of it!

Owen>

Where abouts is that "Snake Rock" I'd like to have a look at that?
I can't tell from a photograph what it is but it looks interesting.

Hi Owen "Snake Rock" was about 500m NW of Cuan right on the high water mark. Whe I get home I will compare the time the photo was taken with the times on my GPS track and get you an exact grid reference, if you have a Garmin GPS I could even email you the waypoint. Is that what you call a geocache? I hope Clark will be able to help out with this tortured rock.

Douglas

[Jim]

Hmm, the reflections on the reflective strips indicate that flash was used in some photos, could this have created the darkness effect? Or perhaps Dr W utilised some hollywood style techniques to make things appear even darker than they were? I don't doubt that conditions were low light but I suspect the participants are not quite as insane as indicated?

Myself and Neil Farmer got back to the car after a rapid afternoon ascent of Ben Odhar at 16:20 on Saturday and it was still fairly light away from city lights - with a fairly open aspect to their west I suspect the sea kayakers would have got a little more out of the fading light. Still as I say, it would have been low light and only minutes away from a scary dark experience!

Nice photo's, as always!

JIM

[tpage]

Douglas,
Looks like a nice little winter's day/night trip- great pics.

I've only been out in the pitch black once- years ago in my friends umnak (the tippiest boat Ive ever been in- no footplate or keepers). November night, swell running, no light- round the skerries off troon- I was Sh88ing myself- never again..Tony

Glad to see Harvey is making good use of my old Capella.

[Douglas Wilcox]

Jim>

Nice photo's, as always! and Hmm, the reflections on the reflective strips indicate that flash was used in some photos, could this have created the darkness effect?

Thanks Jim and yes this is undoubtedly the case particularly applied to many of the earlier flash photograhs which I have not posted. (I took 266 photographs, many were useless because of low light and motion blur but the Sony U60 batteries keep going despite the cold and dark!)

Our eyes did adjust to the darkness quite remarkably. However, my GPS shows that sunset at Cuan was at 16:07 on 7/01/06 and although moon set was not until 01:22 om the 8th, it was cloudy. The track log shows we got back to the jetty at 17:01 when it was totally dark at the jetty. It's 17:01 as I write this on 09/01/06 (it's coudy again) and it's very dark out there!

Tony>

Glad to see Harvey is making good use of my old Capella.

Hi Tony, Harvey looked quite at home in the Capella! He is mad keen and goes to three different Ayrshire club's pool nights! (To build up his confidence for wet exits, rescues etc.)


Douglas

[Jen W]

Due to the lack of snow this season I ended up on the water on Saturday, I had a great day @ Cuan Sound though.. cheers for the tuition Richard!
Jen

[Jim]

Jim>

Nice photo's, as always! and Hmm, the reflections on the reflective strips indicate that flash was used in some photos, could this have created the darkness effect?

Thanks Jim and yes this is undoubtedly the case particularly applied to many of the earlier flash photograhs which I have not posted. (I took 266 photographs, many were useless because of low light and motion blur but the Sony U60 batteries keep going despite the cold and dark!)

Our eyes did adjust to the darkness quite remarkably. However, my GPS shows that sunset at Cuan was at 16:07 on 7/01/06 and although moon set was not until 01:22 om the 8th, it was cloudy. The track log shows we got back to the jetty at 17:01 when it was totally dark at the jetty. It's 17:01 as I write this on 09/01/06 (it's coudy again) and it's very dark out there!

He he!
That was part of my point - at 4pm in the City it seems black as pitch on account of the streetlights etc. you just can't see squat past them! 4pm in the hills, even if it is cloudy, and because you have been out all day you are only just beginning to notice it getting dusky. If the sun set at 16:07 then it shouldn't have been dark for about another 30 minutes (no cloud, so less than that for you). Cuan must be about 50 miles SW of Tyndrum I guess, so our sunset would have been earlier (by how many seconds?) and we had mountains to block the wonderful glow from the western sky, although once again that requires no clouds..... It's interesting having not actually been where you were, I would nominally say it's dark at 16:00 at the moment, but I know that away from city lights I could still see pretty well up to about 16:30 (in fact I think I got back to the van from Ben Nevis at 16:30 on 29th, much closer to shortest day) or maybe a bit later - my camera on the other hand would be struggling much past 15:00! In fact at 15:50 in Ae forest yesterday the best I could get with ISO100 was 1/4" at f4 - I had a stick for a monopod and 2 exposures to use up on my 2 mates so went for the full exposure hoping to get them blurring through the frame, I wasn't after all about to fire a flash off in their eyes yards before the final jump and wooden causeway :) It will take a while to find out if it worked (must go and sort out films now).

JIM

[John W]

Thought I'd add (or at least try to - still not got the hang of adding photos!) my contribution to the 'Rockpool boats in the dark' club.

She's named 'Britney' apparently (she also has an attraction to rocks - is it a Rockpool thing?)

http://angleseypaddling.fotopic.net/p24032546.html

[RichardCree]

Good pics John, it is a Rockpool thing

[Zoe Newsam]

Wow- Britney's cute! Love the paint job!!!

Nice pics as ever, John.

[Owen]

Douglas[/quote]
Hi Owen "Snake Rock" was about 500m NW of Cuan right on the high water mark.
Douglas[/quote]

Thanks Douglas,
Next time I'm up that way I'll have a look for it, I don't have a GPS but I should be able to find it.

[Mark R]

Weird. Is that rock a natural or manmade feature?

[seismicscot]

Most definitely a giant fossilised King Snake (Palaelampropeltis giganticus), a distant relation of the modern day California King Snake:



Although now found only in North America, during the deposition of the Dalradian Supergroup (a long time prior to the opening of the Atlantic), these palaeo-monsters swam the deep waters of the Easdale basin!

Or (Removing tongue from cheek) these are disharmonic folds* in the Easdale Slate. The 'snake' looks like is is a bed of more competent (mechanically stronger) quartzite (metamorphosed sandstone) or marble (metamorphosed limestone) within a sequence of tightly folded slates (metamorphosed shale). The 'stripes' are probably either quartz or calcite veins that developed parallel to the fold axial planes.

I've never seen this outcrop, but tide races and interesting geology; what more of an excuse do I need to visit?

Cheers,

Clark

* see another example at link

[Jim]

Now I could have expected Clarks explanation to include some long tongue twistery words, but whilst "disharmonic" is less than expected it's quite a beautiful and unexpected use of an uncommon word which more than makes up for it.

Please remember not to confuse your king snakes and coral snakes, similar looking but one is considerably more deadly....

JIM

[CaptainSensible]

Can someone tinyurl that Google link - it's making that post extra wide...

[Mark R]

Can someone tinyurl that Google link - it's making that post extra wide...

Fixed.

[John W]

Zoe

Sorry, but Britney is not quite as cute now; we had a slight misunderstanding involving the rock at the top of the North Stack Race - oops!

Mike took it surprisingly well and assured me that she would be as good as new once he had got Aled to attend to the required cosmetic surgery!

However, Mr Cree dose seem able to add a little more flair to such occurences!

[Zoe Newsam]

Oooh, ouch! :0(

I know exactly which rock you mean, I think... and I'm sure you're not the first!

So, will you be investing in a new boat then, John?

[Mark Gawler]

She's named 'Britney' apparently (she also has an attraction to rocks - is it a Rockpool thing?)

Cool I want one... At last a boat that doesn't class with my peach dry cag and purple dry trousers.

[seismicscot]

Now I could have expected Clarks explanation to include some long tongue twistery words

Note to self: use more jargon or, as a representative of a large UK oil company commented after my presentation on fault rupture hazard to his offshore gas development, geopsychobabble!!

The following books are quite good for an intro the the geology of the UK:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/1840374047/qid=1136990415/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_2_1/203-7052467-5020739

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/074920138X/qid=1136990572/sr=2-1/ref=sr_2_3_1/203-7052467-5020739

Cheers,

Clark