Finally! We had our eyes on a second hand sea kayak. This one was from a kayak outfitter on the west coast. This guy makes drone movies of his kayak trips and oh my, amazing! Check out Arisaig sea kayaking if you want to see some beautiful shots.

We picked up the kayak after a bit of a drive and were pleased with the state it was in. A friend of us has a dad who live close by, so we had asked if we could borrow his sea kayak for a couple of hours to try out our new boat, and to explore the area a little.

The new boat was going to be Leighs, a bit of a play boat for rock hopping, fast turning and surfing, but enough storage space for some overnight trips. With Karen’s dad’s boat and our new race monster we headed to a beach just a 3 minute drive from his house. It’s quite the location. It was sunny weather, and the beach was full of kids and parents, having a bbq and playing around. Though winter jackets were on, feet were bare and the cold water seemed to just please them. They looked liberated after the long dark Scottish winter.

Off we went, over the nice calm seas to Eilean Shona, an island owned by the sister of the owner of Virgin airlines. We followed the beautiful coastline into a loch, and managed to go around the island, at low tide there may not be any water at the back. On the other side we came across a pittoresque castle that was pointing out to us that we were still in Scotland. Something we almost forgot, as the pine trees on rocks reminded us of Nova Scotia, the Deer Island area in New Brunswick, and even a little bit of the Lake in the Woods. But, Scottish castles are a little sparse in those areas.

The wind seemed to pick up, and I started to get a little nervous about our way back on open ocean, but getting out to sea we saw that the forecast was right, the wind was still very low. It must have been funneling over the loch. We had a rest just before heading out on the ocean on a beach with water so blue we could have sworn we were in the caribbeans. Except, ofcourse, we would not be wearing pogies (kayak gloves) and a dry suit there.

Though we had the current with us, the way back seemed a bit longer than the way out, but we eventually made it to the beach, way too early to watch the sunset over the ocean, a feature a bit more rare on the East coast where we live. However, we still had a couple of hours to go to drive back. Kayak approved, and oh my, another amazing area discovered.