Sea Christening - Fidra - 25/11/2006

Unfortunate for Callum, his plans for Sunday interfered with my semi-organised bimble for the River Teith. He asked if I would be interested in a Saturday bimble. I suggested a Seacliff trip. Lack of surf near Ali led her to suggest Bass Rock. Abundance of wind led her to change plans to Yellowcraig beach and a paddle around Fidra and other nearby lumps of rock. Ali brought her Inazone for me to paddle on the dark side, figuring with that I had a chance to make it out more than a hundred yards from the beach before dark. Callum let me borrow his daughter Lucy's paddle. After just one detour, I found Callum's house and rode with him to meet up with Ali and Robin at the beach. We had about an hour and a half of daylight left in the day for our paddle.

Once in the water, Robin and Callum helped me get my spray deck on the boat. Unfortunately, I took on one wee wave before getting out to them. Not too much water. Once in, we headed out toward the island. I waited until that point to tell them that I was a sea virgin. Callum had assumed I was hardcore, having been keen for Bass Rock. I told him Ali said the sea was flat. He laughed and said Ali's definition of flat didn't always mean flat as we watched Ali motor into the waves in the distance.

The waves got bigger closer to the island. The wind said hello, too. Callum hung semi-close to me, occasionally asking if I was ok. My answer: sort of. It took a little while, but I made it to the island. I was happy to have a kiddie paddle, but definitely slow for it. I paddled up to a biggish rock eddy to take a few bird photos. It was too dark for me to guess what kind of birds they were. The swarm of herring gulls was easy to identify but the birds on the island looked a bit more graceful. At least graceful until they noticed me and bellyflopped into the water to get away from me.

I left them and rejoined the rest of the group to paddle around the outside of the island. The surf got bigger and I got more nervous. Again, Callum asked me if I was ok. I shook my head no and said yes. He laughed. We continued an awkward ferry glide through the surf. We had to turn to stay with the island so we got to ride the waves between some sharp pointy rocks. I wasn't exactly keen for the surf, but didn't have much choice. Robin laughed and said he felt as nervous as I looked.

After three or four waves chucked me forward, I sort of got used to it. I never really got used to that little backward pull at the end but otherwise it had its uses. Around the corner was sort of a wavy eddy. The big swells stayed on the other side but occasionally waves found their way in for us to bob around. There was a small cave on the right that Robin and Callum peered into. Robin, Callum and I each had a go paddling through the big natural bridge sort of thing. Once on the other side, a biggish wave found its way through and beached me on some rocks about six inches out of the water. It was a good perch for a photo.

We ventured out and around to the next eddyish place and saw more birds, this time a bit closer up. Aside from the seagulls, I could only guess what the others were. The Scottish Seabird Centre suggests they may be guillemots, but it was a bit dusky for me to know for sure. Speaking of the Scottish Seabird Centre, I wonder if we showed up on their Fidra webcam. Its unfortunate that we can't access archival footage.

Sunset made it darker still and we decided to head back to the beach around the other nearby island. The surf never got as eventful as around the Firth side of Fidra, although one wave made a loud enough crash against the island behind me to get my attention. I didn't stop paddling as I took a quick peek over my shoulder. Bark bigger than bite. The paddle back to the beach didn't seem to take near as long as the paddle out. Robin gave me a tug onto the beach itself and I took an extra minute to extract myself from the kayak. Ali or whoever used that boat last is a tad shorter than me and outfitted it in such a way that I couldn't move the bulkhead out. My legs needed that minute to wake up again.

After a very long hike back to the cars, we changed out of wet and sandy gear and then headed for Callum's. I had brought the second tray of not-really-pumpkin custard leftover from Thanksgiving, which was promptly divided into four portions and demolished. I was asked when the next Thanksgiving might be and informed that I don't really need an excuse. They would be happy to let me cook for them anytime.