Loch Leven 2018

Combined weekend trip with Fife Sea Kayak Club and the Scottish Sea Kayaking E-Group (SSKEG)

Friday at Caolasnacon Campsite, beside the narrows on Loch Leven. The constriction gives a tidal flow of up to 6 knots on a spring flood with nicely defined eddy lines to give a bit of moving water fun. We had a few rolls over the course of the evening, most of them intentional.

 Saturday was dry but breezy (so no midges) As we set out down Loch Leven towards Glencoe Village and Ballachulish with the ebb tide giving us a hand along. 

After a quick paddle up the River Coe we headed across, round the islands to land on Eilan Munde... 























...where we had a very peaceful lunch, lazing in the shelter and enjoying the sun, followed by an exploration of the island, burial place of Clan MacDonald, followed by a bit more lazing in the sunshine... 

 Eventually, we abandoned our own desert island and made our way into a fairly strong breeze to the slate harbour at Ballachulish.  A foraging party went ashore to procure the ingredients for some camp-stove pancakes for supper while the rest of us lazed in the sunshine and watched the world go by.

There was still enough tide running through the bridge to give a reasonably bouncy wave train west of the narrows where we spent a bit of time surfing and playing in the flow while a group went off in search of a tea-room.

Stuart invited us all back to his for a cuppa, staying only a few hundred yards from the water and only a handful of miles from his camp-spot for the weekend.

Tide was rising again as we made it back to the boats, pushing us back up the loch for a supper of pancakes courtesy of Lizzie and Ali.

The following morning a group of us headed round to Inchree to do a bit of canyoning with Vertical Descents. After shoe-horning ourselves into some heavy duty wet-suits we trecked up to the top of the falls and slipped, slithered, jumped, zipped, swam, fell and dived our way back down to the bottom again. Freezing cold, great fun and well worth the effort.  Suitably peeled out of our wet gear, Mike Ali and I headed across to Tayvallich and a very fine supper in the Tayvallich Inn before meeting up with Graham at the camp site.