18 minute read
Over the sea to Skye
THIS PHOTO:
View from Skye’s Old Man of Storr towards Raasay INSET: Red Moon
Over the sea Skye to
Sally Coffey takes a private cruise in the waters around Skye to discover secret anchorages, undisturbed wildlife, and to hear tales of long ago
Our skippers spot it rst: a dark lump on the horizon. There’s a scramble as a second pair of binoculars is found and shared around, each of us careful not to take our eyes off the distant point while we wait our turn. Silence as we stand on the ship’s foredeck staring determinedly at the sea, hoping it wasn’t an illusion. And then we see it – the sleek arc of a minke whale’s back and a hint of its dorsal n.
It’s a humbling experience that elicits gasps from my three friends and I – even our skippers, Mary and Scott, seem awe struck.
Gradually, Scott steers the boat a little further out in the Inner Sound, before cutting the engine and letting us bob on the water, waiting to see if the whale breaks the surface again, and then it does, but this time much closer. We are in the company of one of the giants of the sea, which are often spotted off the coast of Skye and its neighbouring Inner Hebridean isles, and over the next half an hour or more, we watch as it crosses the Sound, trying to anticipate where it will come up for air next.
This sighting, off the coast of the Isle of Raasay, is the culmination of an incredible four-day cruise in the waters around Skye, which has brought us closer to more wildlife than I could have hoped for – otters, seals, sea birds (including a solitary puf n), and porpoises. These are not the sightings you’re likely to get on an afternoon’s cruise, but
LEFT TO RIGHT: The minke whale spotted by Sally and friends; the pretty Highlands village of Plockton
© ADAM BURTON/EYE35.PIX/ALAMY. ILLUSTRATION: © MICHAEL A HILL
spend several days at sea, I’m learning, and wildlife will be oblivious of your presence, as you sit at anchor in their natural habitat.
Our cruise had begun a few days earlier as we boarded the small but luxurious boat Red Moon from the main pontoon in Plockton, a tranquil and pretty Highlands village that sits on a nger of the Scottish mainland’s northwest coastline overlooking Loch Carron.
Couple Mary and Scott, who own the boat, had welcomed us on board, shown us into our cosy cabins – a double forward and two singles to port and starboard – before running through a safety brie ng and overview of our itinerary over a cooling drink.
Mary and Scott live on the boat year-round – in winter the boat is moored in Dunstaffnage Marina in Argyll – and from April to October they run private cruises for up to four passengers. Though they are both experienced skippers, on their cruises Scott does the bulk of helming, while Mary hosts and prepares delicious meals from morning through night as “it just works better when we do it that way”.
Built in 1944 and launched the following year, Red Moon is a wooden boat with teak decks and port holes that was once used as an auxiliary boat with a stint on the Clyde. It has also been a shing boat in Orkney and the Shetland Islands.
Since then, she’s been sumptuously kitted out, with very comfortable beds, an excellent power shower and lots of modern Scottish touches, including woollen tartan throws, Highland Soap Company toiletries, and an expertly curated library of books to sit and leaf through when you are underway.
Doing an intimate cruise like this means you get to know your crew well, and so we soon discover that Mary and Scott had their rst date on a night of a red moon, hence the boat’s name.
By the time we anchor on our rst night, deep into Loch Hourn, in a pool so far in that Scott must steer through a narrow channel, we’ve already spotted an otter, several seals and two groups of porpoises.
At the helm, New Zealand-born Scott is constantly on the lookout for wildlife. I ask him if he ever feels complacent about the wildlife here, “not at all, I actively seek it out,” he tells me. “It makes the landscape seem more wild to me [when I see it].”
Loch Hourn is a sea loch that sits between Glenelg and the remote Knoydart peninsula. At the loch’s head, at Kinloch Hourn, there’s a small café, B&B, and parking, but from there it’s a long walk to reach anywhere else resembling civilisation on Knoydart.
However, civilisation is far from our minds. The fjord-like loch is
By the time we anchor on our first night, we’ve already spotted an otter, several seals and two groups of porpoises
CLOCKWISE, FROM TOP
LEFT: On a private cruise, guests can reach places other tourists don’t; Loch Hourn; wild otters are often spotted around these waters; a cosy single cabin
Seeing the shortbread-tin castle of Eilean Donan from the water is like seeing it for the fi rst time
CLOCKWISE, FROM TOP
LEFT: The Skye Bridge crosses Loch Alsh; Mary serves traditional Scottish dishes like cranachan; a refreshing morning swim; Eilean Donan; Mary and Scott, owners of Red Moon
peaceful, anked by green hills either side, whose peaks disappear behind the clouds at intervals, and the water is so clear we can see hundreds of moon jelly sh just below the surface, which Mary and Scott assure us are not poisonous.
We toast our rst night at anchor with pink champagne and prawn-toast canapés in the wheelhouse (we soon come to learn that an aperitif is a daily ritual aboard Red Moon) before going through to the salon for a dinner of sea trout with sweet potatoes, asparagus, and cherry tomatoes, drizzled with a coconut sauce, followed by that most decadent drizzled with a coconut sauce, followed by that most decadent of Scottish desserts: cranachan.
Mary is a skilled chef and uses the freshest ingredients she can source. As we’d passed by Kyle of Lochalsh earlier that day, she had pointed to a hut in a huddle of buildings and said, “that’s where I get all my sh”. Now, over dinner, she tells us that her bread all comes from Manuela’s Wee Bakery, also in Kyle, while all her meat comes from a butcher in Gairloch.
The following morning after an uninterrupted night’s sleep, I go for a swim with one of my friends before breakfast.
It feels special swimming in our own deserted loch – the water is silken, and the mosaic of greens and blues of this natural landscape are equally cleansing. After a few minutes, we haul ourselves out of the water, wrap ourselves in the big soft towels provided and have a sip of
coffee before taking it in turns to have hot showers.
After breakfast we jump in the small tender and Scott motors us over to the shore where we walk down a path that was once the original road to Skye. The path is patchy and boggy in places and at one point we lose it entirely and end up taking a lengthy detour up and over a headland. But it gives us a sense of the vastness of this landscape, considered one of the last true wildernesses in Scotland.
It’s certainly a place that sings of nature and life, with huge rocks covered in moss, damp ground carpeted with soft grasses and wild owers, and trees and ferns dripping in moisture, with the silence broken only by the occasional splash of a diving otter or a playful seal.
Today the Knoydart Peninsula is looked after by the Knoydart Foundation, a charity that effectively puts the land back in the hands of the community. It’s not always been this democratic – during the Highland Clearances of the 19th century The Sillery ship transported hundreds of crofters from here to Canada – life for the locals who refused to leave was made unbearable. In 1948 the ‘Seven Men of Knoydart’ attempted to claim back some of the land as their own, but their plans were unsuccessful. It wasn’t until many years later, in 1999, that the lands of Knoydart were nally set free.
We arrive back on board to a lunch of hot and cold smoked salmon with salad and seeded brown bread, prepared by Mary, which we heartily enjoy before embarking to our next port of call, Totaig Bay, where we have an enviable view of Eilean Donan castle.
Eilean Donan is the shortbread tin view of Scotland, and yet I’ve only ever seen it from the relatively busy A87 road before, which does dampen the romance a little.
From the water, it’s like seeing it for the rst time, and though the present building is a Victorian reconstruction of the original medieval
building, you can see what wannabe invaders would have been confronted with – castle walls along which canons could be aimed and red, and lookout points that would make you feel closely monitored.
When the sun sets and the castle is illuminated, the scene becomes more magical than impenetrable, and the castle appears dwarfed by the huge hill behind it.
The next morning, before bidding farewell to Eilean Donan, Scott brings the boat alongside it. It feels thrilling to be this close and to see it from a perspective that few others get to see.
From Eilean Donan we sail through Kyle Rhea and under the Skye Bridge, before coming in to anchor on the west side of the Isle of Raasay.
It’s been a few years since I’ve visited Raasay, and thankfully, enough time has passed that the whisky the distillery had just put into casks then is ready to taste.
Raasay Distillery has transformed the fortunes of this small isle, which had been suffering the dreaded ‘brain drain’ so regularly complained of in rural Scotland, until the distillery opened in 2017, providing much-needed employment for islanders and bolstering the tourism trade.
The views of the Red Cuillin from the distillery are tremendous. The distillery has smart rooms to stay in, and a restaurant in the planning, but day-trippers can take a tour, or have a drink at the bar. OPPOSITE: Our editor For the best views on Raasay, however, and friends aboard I suggest climbing Temptation Hill – a steep Red Moon but short-enough climb, with views across BELOW: Rainy’s regime had a devastating e ect the Sound of Raasay to Skye, as well as down over Raasay’s North Bay beach. From on Raasay here you also get an aerial view of Raasay
Today only the haunting stone outlines of the homes of Hallaig, cleared between 1852 and 1854, remain
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House, once home to the notorious landowner George Rainy, a merciless man who evicted many of the island’s tenant farmers and forced inhumane measures on those who remained in less hospitable areas. Today Raasay House is a hostel/café/activity centre. The community walled garden behind is evidence that at least today the people of Raasay have more autonomy over their lives.
On this, the final night of our cruise, Scott takes us to an anchorage on the east of the island known as Waterfall Bay. Though, as expected, there is a waterfall, this area is also known as Hallaig Bay, after the village that once stood above it.
Hallaig was one of the victims of Rainy’s regime, cleared between 1852 and 1854. Today only the stone outlines of former homes remain.
The village became immortalised 100 years later in the poem Hallaig by Sorley Maclean, which laments the lost people of the village:
“They are still in Hallaig
MacLeans and MacLeods
All who were there in the time of Mac Gille Chaluim:
The dead have been seen alive.”
The emptiness of the landscape here adds to the poignancy of those lost communities and yet it’s a place that speaks of acts of resilience too, from the Raasay Raiders who landed nearby from the Isle of Rona to claim back the land that was rightfully theirs, to the work of Calum Macleod, whose hand-built road starts just up and beyond the waterfall.
Calum’s Road, as it is respectfully known, connects the north part of Raasay to the rest of the island.
When Calum’s repeated requests to the council to build a road went
ABOVE: Calum’s Road on Raasay, hand-built by Calum Macleod over a period of 10 years unheard, Calum took matters into his own hands, and built one himself, over a period of 10 years.
That night, as we sit on the aft deck, sharing tales and watching the sunset, with the hills of Applecross across the water bathed in a milky haze, I can’t help but think of Calum and what his homeland meant to him and the legacy he has left behind.
You won’t see run-of-the mill sights on a Red Moon cruise, and you may not even set foot on Skye itself, (we didn’t), but this doesn’t mean you will miss the drama of the island.
On a cruise like this, you simply see everything from a different vantage point – the sea – much as those displaced people would have, whether they were leaving their homeland or arriving back to claim or revisit the land of their ancestors.
Whether you are looking for wildlife, an appreciation of the landscape, or to learn more about the history of these isles, a cruise like this will give you a more authentic viewpoint than any land tour or larger cruise ship could ever hope to do. S
As we sit on the aft deck sharing tales, I can’t help but think of Calum and what his homeland meant to him
To find out more about Red Moon cruises, go to redmooncruises.co.uk
