The hunk of rock above is Out Stack, which happens to be the northernmost point of Britain. It’s located a short way north of Muckle Flugga Lighthouse, which is a short way north of the Shetland Isles. I certainly wasn’t on my own, out on the water up there on top of the UK. The [...]
Archive for the ‘Gannets’ Category
Out Stack Leave a comment
Gannets of Bass Rock 1 comment
One of my favourite images ever. Approaching 150,000 gannets on Bass Rock, in the Firth of Forth. We had been able to smell them from several miles back…
St Alban’s Head tide race 3 comments
The tide race off St Alban’s Head, this morning. A great Christmas Day walk (taking in the Square and Compass pub at Worth Matravers!) but I would rather have been out on the water…
Flamborough Head Gannet Leave a comment
This fellow at Flamborough Head in Yorkshire is easily the best six foot tall wooden carved gannet that we’ve ever seen. Sadly, he was alone; we were too late in the season for the 1000s of gannets who usually live nearby at Bempton Cliffs.
Casquets Leave a comment
An island too far … we had crossed 26+ miles from Sark to the island of Alderney, negotiating some epic tidal flows en route. Another eight miles out from Alderney were the Casquets Rocks, with their lighthouse guarding the southern approaches to the Dover Strait. Reaching the lighthouse on these rocks would involve crossing some of the strongest [...]
Les Etacs Leave a comment
A visit to Les Etacs, a gannet colony off the Channel Island of Alderney, in 2010. Thousands of gannets, our largest sea bird, with a two metre wing span. Swirling, diving and roosting. It didn’t smell too good.
Dead Birds Leave a comment
Hey, why not? Found at Orkney, Galloway and Pembrokeshire.
The cliffs of Ailsa Craig 2 comments
This photo shows the island of Ailsa Craig, 9 miles offshore in the Firth of Clyde, up in Scotland. I usually hate piddling around with Photoshop – the vast majority of pics here on the blog are simply posted up direct from the camera without any editing at all. I have nothing against Photoshop, it’s just [...]
Easter Tour Leave a comment
Just returned from a splendid two weeks of sea paddling that has been diverse, to put it mildly. First we visited Pembrokeshire in west Wales. Then, we headed to London and the Thames estuary. After a quick call in back home, we had planned to head up to NE England or maybe Anglesey in north [...]
Muckle Flugga Leave a comment
Right at the very top of the Shetland Isles is the island of Unst, the most far northerly bit of the UK. Just north of that is the lighthouse of Muckle Flugga and just north of that is Out Stack, a rather unimpressive rock. Nothing else to be found, north of there. That’s it.
Cliffs Leave a comment
I have cynically used the word ‘cliffs’ in the title here, as this Google search engine keyword brings more people here than any other, by some distance. So, if you came here looking for your GCSE Geography homework, bad luck, you’ve been conned - but you can at least copy and paste the two pictures into your [...]
Oops 2 comments
This is by far and away the most expensive photo I’ve ever taken. Whilst I was photographing my friend Steve on the River Dart yesterday, my waterproof camera bag (which was unsealed) rolled off a rock and into the river. Inside was my lovely Nikon 80-200 f2.8 lens (if you don’t understand the nerdy nomenclature, [...]
Shetland Images 1 comment
The December issue of Canoe Kayak UK magazine has a photo-feature about our fantastic trip to Shetland, last summer. Hope it’s of interest. There are also some pics of our trip here…
Channel Hopping 1 comment
The following article was originally published in Canoe Kayak UK magazine. It describes our splendid Whitsun trip to the Channel Islands. Enjoy… ——————————————————- Channel Hopping Exploring the Channel Islands of Guernsey, Harm, Sark and Alderney by sea kayak Gannets! Thousands of ‘em! The sky is crowded full by our largest seabirds. Tidal rapids drag us [...]
Channel Hopping 3 comments
In the early hours of this morning we returned from a wonderful trip to the Channel Islands. It was all the more excellent because in truth, we had had no idea what to expect and what we found was a real revelation. Below are a few hastily scribbled notes about what we’ve been up to, [...]
Guest Appearance … 1 comment
A contribution from Mrs Rainsley … Weeks and weeks ago I promised Mark that I would do some guest posts. I have failed miserably at getting round to it. But it is Friday night, the sun has gone down and it is good to look back on the summer. Long anticipated and finally viewed for [...]
South East (Scotland) Sea Kayaking 2 comments
Well, the plan was good. Heather, John G and myself trekked to the North Sea coast and across the border into Scotland. The plan was to spend the week paddling south from the Firth of Forth, into England’s Northumberland coast. It wasn’t going to happen – it was clear from the start that the weather wasn’t going to [...]
