Fog, Midges, Porpoises and Dolphins.

On Saturday our small group set out from Kyleakin to head for Uags bothy. We were straight away greeted by some thick sea har, hugging the coastlines. From our lunch break at Port Lunge we got a good blast of sunshine. In the late afternoon, we received a light breeze, which made the paddling harder, but on the other hand, we wouldn’t need to fight off midges from the get-go at Uags Bothy. Once the wind has dropped in the evening the midges showed their dominance outside. Luckily we had a bothy to hide from the wee beasties. However, getting into the tent with limiting a swarm of midges to join you was difficult. Inside the tent, it sounded like it was raining, but it was just a cloud of midges trying to get in.

The morning revealed how bad it was! It took me half an hour to build up the courage to leave the tent and run to the bothy. A black swarm chasing us all the way. Once the sun started to blast down on us it started getting better. We set off in the early morning to head towards Applecross. Slowly the mist burned off and we started seeing Raasay. After a lunchbreak in Applecross we went further north to Sand and then across to the northern tip of Raasay. There we had the chance of using the Taigh Thormoid Dhuibh bothy and we took it. Just to get away from the beasties for a night.

The evening entertaining was a scrabble game with some masters of the words (me not included). After setting off in the morning we had 3 sightings of porpoises between Raasay and Portree in Skye. In Portree we had a nice fish supper and set off well rested in the afternoon again. In the southern end of the Raasay Sound we encountered 2 pods of common in short succesion. They had a good look at us too and then headed north from where we were. That evening we spent on Raasay on a spot with the best views you can have.

The 4th day panned out to be less eventfull and exciting as the previous day but still offered nice scenery when paddling down the rest of Raasay and passed Scalpay, where we camped for the night. On the last morning we couldn’t face being part of a midge breakfast and got on the water brighht and early and had a jam bagle on the water. On our last stretch to Pabay and to Kyleakin we had the calmest condition you can imagine in Skye and some scenic mist covering the nearby hills.