5* conditions - not!

Some folks will park anywhere!

Iain on his private island. That red buoy is his camera float!

A nice wee jaunt out in our usual spot last weekend. In at North Queensferry, up to the new bridge, well the bit of island that has been created for the bridge legs. A nice paddle down under the road bridge, then under the Forth bridge to Inchgarvie.

Huey, Dewey & Louie

Me under the bridge

Iain and Niall

Little boat, big boat, massive bridge.

 It was then a long paddle down to Inchmickery. Then it was an even longer paddle for Hubby dear who towed Iain and Niall all the way over to Oxcars lighthouse. His face matched his red boat beautifully by the time he got there. This was in preparation for his 5* sea assessment next week. As you can probably see, it was hardly 5* conditions.

Inchmickery

Has the radio active particles at Dalgety Bay affected the wildlife

Oxcars

 We then cut round by Car Craig and over to Hawkesmuir, where it was time for a bit of rolling, self rescue practise. The sun may have shone brightly, but the water was still bitterly cold. After that, we headed back into Silver Sands Bay for some very welcome hot soup.

Self rescues

Loch Rannoch

Bumpy waters

Hubby dear and I have just had our annual week up at Loch Rannoch. First day up there, we decided to go for a quick paddle down on the loch. From high up in our room we could see the water was rough. The wind was blowing hard, but it was just a quick jaunt we wanted, a bit of fresh air. Once down on the loch, the rough water was even rougher! Once in our boats, we paddled hard for about 20 mins and had managed to travel the grand distance of approximately 100yards. We couldn't even get much distance to play on the waves, so we about turned, headed back in and had a trip into Aberfeldy instead.

Same water, different day!

Our twisty river

Later in the week, we had a wee trip up to Loch Eigheach, next to Rannoch station. We followed a small river up the side of the loch, twisting and turning round increasingly tight corners, til we ended up in a forest opening for lunch. We decided to call a halt here as we were practically doing a three point turn trying to manoeuvre round the bends.
Each morning we would waken up to see Schiehallion , more often than not sitting with a large cloud on the top and also getting seriously buffeted with the wind. On our last day, the mountain was clear and the wind had died down, so a walk to the top was the days exercise. Just after we started, we spotted a couple of large birds, which after we'd enlarged the photos, discovered they were Red Kites. The tags on their wings showed they had been tagged near Stirling and were now 10 years old.
 The week before, Schiehallion was covered in thick snow, but was now almost completely cleared apart from a very small patch of snow large enough to make snow angels on. By the time we got to the top, the cloud had come down again. The view we got was non existent. On our way back down we watched a young Golden eagle being chased by a couple of Buzzards.
I'm already looking forward to next year.
On the Saturday, we eventually got a little bit of long awaited surf up at St Andrews to try out the surf kayaks. We've now at last decided which boats we want. Now to pray for a few more wavy days to play with them.