One challenge at a time

  Today I had organised a boat trip round some of the islands to see what wildlife was there to see. The trip was from kallin, roughly 11 miles from the campsite, so the plan was to cycle there, go on the boat and cycle back... easy flat roads... no problem. Do you hear the laughter start to echo? I set off, knowing that on the way there I would have a side tail wind and a side headwind most of the way back. It was also an opportunity to test out a lesser used feature of my Garmin Etrex, that of route finding. Usually I plan a route on my computer at home and upload it into my garmin to follow when I get to my start point, now I was going to try and plug in a destination and  let garmin work out the route for me. So off I went... right out of the campsite then immediately left...  down a gravel track which got rougher and more gravelly by the second. Then a dead end... hmmm... the garmin was pointing towards a gate and beyond a grass track over the fields... nope... sorry garmin... not

  I awoke to clear skies with the sun already shining... today was going to be warm. I set foot outside my tent and immediately got hit by a gusting wind, whipping in from the N Atlantic Sea. On an essentially flat land, the wimd is merciless at times and it was gusting at quite a few knots. Nevertheless, I eventually pulled myself out of my sleeping bag and prepared my kayak kit... struggled into my wetsuit and started to drive out of the campsite. There were a few possible locations to launch nearby. The one, directly behind the campsite was a bit of a drag over the sand dunes to get to the water. I had timed this mornings activities to start just after high tide so that I could be back to the beach here a few hours before low tide, which is apparently the best time to spot otters. I had seen a jetty a bit further away on the way in and decided to try there as it would have an easier access to the water but when I got there I didnt like the look of it. I'm pretty confident when i

  It was an early morning start as I raced out of the campsite to catch my ferry to Uist... I did have time to stick a couple of energy gels onto Val and Anette's bike, as given the terrain, they were going to need them. The drive down to the ferry was filled with little gems that I didn't have time to stop at.... maybe on the way back. The roads wound round the hills, singletrack most of the time with blind bends and crests... it was fun to drive  though pretty slow going. I arrived at the ferry and made the mistake of not buying something to eat at the little butty bus as assumed could eat on the ferry. Unfortunately this ferry was a stay in your car kinda one. For probably the first time. in my life, I felt a little seasick, probably because I was in a car unable to see the view... it was not so fun. As soon as the ferry docked I aimed with purpose to a car park... yup a car park. Here I could see seals apparently, sitting on the rocks. As I rounded the bend I could see some

  So today I awoke with purpose, having had a bit of a driving transition day.. Last night I figured out the tides here.... or rather I checked on an app. At 2030 last night the tide was in.. and the water was slightly closer than when the tide was out.. funny that. So at 0830 the tide should be in and therefore I wont have to haul my kayak so far across the huge expanse of sand that Uig beach consists of. So I jumped up, dragged my kayak across the dunes to my tent, changed into my wetsuit and then dragged it down a small cliff (slight exaggeration) to the beach and dragged it still further to the waters edge. This would be the first time I had launched in surf conditions, albeit in quite a protected cove.  It went ok.. I stood in ankle deep water, hopped in, did up the skirt and pushed off... aiming my kayak at the incoming waves which it handled with ease... they were small as the tide was at the peak, just before starting to go out. The drawback to this plan would be that the tide