Paddling through a sea of ideas

Ed Ley-Wilson's kayak on the beach near Knoydart

Halfway through a solo 56-day sea kayaking journey through the Scottish Highlands, the open Atlantic has come to visit.

I am north of Harris in the Outer Hebrides and, out of the shadow of the isle of Taransay, the enormous surging power of the ocean dwarfs my tiny sea kayak and the freshening offshore wind snatches at my paddle. Not for the first time on this trip, fear stirs in my gut and I realise I’ve made a bad call.

Big seas, offshore wind, small boat and paddling alone – I’m breaking all my own rules.

Literally and metaphorically out of my depth and several kilometres from the shore, I am utterly exposed. Swallowed into the troughs, the horizon disappears and my watery world, for a few moments, turns grey.

Ahead, is the looming power of the next wave, the energy within it lifting me high onto its wind-driven peak, surface waves lumping about in all directions and bringing the land back into view.

The massive Toe Head off the southwest tip of Harris lies just five kilometres away and already I can see the swells breaking white on its black edges and bursting up the cliffs. The sea there will be huge.What the heck am I doing out here? Alone, invisible from the shore, bouncing along on a messy sea and breathing deeply to hold the panic in check.

It’s been quite a trip. Setting out from the mouth of the Clyde several weeks before and with several weeks still ahead, I am deeply bedded into this place I love and which has been home for almost 40 years.

Travelling by kayak, driven by muscle power alone, and camping on rough shores, provides an intimacy with wind and weather and place, that I have found hard to beat. This slow mode of travel calms the mind and thoughts and ideas start to settle.

For the Highlands after all, are full of interest. Indeed, when you give yourself time, they are not only great places to live but are also good to think with too. I am taking the opportunity here, using the physical kayaking journey as a theme, to take a purposeful wander through an island nation stuffed full of wonders where ecological, social and political issues abound.

And I’m in good company there too. In 1934, the future editor of this newspaper, Alastair Dunnet, and his friend Seamus Adam set off from the Clyde to kayak up the west coast of Scotland. By the standards of the day, this was a formidable undertaking. Their wooden-framed kayaks were stable but heavy and their rough weather clothing had none of the Gore-Tex and neoprene with which we paddlers protect ourselves today.

Their physical adventure remains a tremendous feat but, for me, it was their investigative journey that really inspired.

And using their example, my intent too is to travel with a curious and investigative mindset to the fore. They set off into the blue not just to look at the pretty views or to conquer a distance.

Theirs was a journey of discovery, an attempt to understand what they were seeing and what social and political challenges were facing the Highlands of that time.

And those challenges have continued.

On land, in recent years, momentous change has occurred. Communities have purchased the land upon which they live and, uniquely in the UK and most of Europe, we have a responsible right of access to it too. Back in 1992, I attended that meeting in Stoer village hall, when the Assynt Crofters stated their intent to purchase the Assynt estate. The old feudal system of ownership and associated attitudes to use of the land was challenged and found wanting – and so our world changed.

Since then vast swathes of the Highlands have moved from individual to community ownership and at last the people who live here have a proper say on what happens around them.

My kayak journey, in some of the wettest and windiest summer weather experienced for years, carries me from the Clyde west to Gigha, an early adopter of community ownership, and north through the Sound of Jura, to Oban and beyond.

At every turn, the Highlands throws out issues of interest. In Argyll, the cloak of rhododendrons suffocating the landscape excites debate around invasive species; the tourist hotspots seasonally swamping roads and villages on Skye question the effect of unfettered tourism; second homes everywhere, already driving up costs and displacing local and young folk, are encouraging a more radical legislative discussion; and salmon farms, providers of well-paid and knowledge-based year-round jobs, still divide opinion and set locals against more recent residents.

There is much to think about, much at the leading edge of social, political and economic development, and much to do.

Journeying by kayak through this sea of ideas is not just an intellectual journey though. It is a physical and emotional one too. Removing oneself from the usual comfort zones of home, switching off the mobile phone and allowing the natural spaces to seep in, provides a source of joy.

Living becomes elemental and a deeper connection with the natural world is the result. The wind howling round the tent or snatching at your paddle, the all-powerful and ever-restless sea, the seemingly endless rain pock-marking the water’s surface, dolphins coming to visit, sea eagles, squabbling terns, the lonesome moans of seals hauling out high on the seaweed shore, these are the lone sea kayaker’s daily companions.

And every now and again, as I round a headland in a lumpy sea, or when mountains soar from the water’s edge, or when the sun reappears after the rain, there is an emotional response, a feeling, a pleasure, that flushes through me. It is simply ‘wonder’ and ‘awe’ I think.And maybe that’s what this journey is all about in the end. To think, yes, but also to feel, to let go. We are more than just rational animals after all, we are emotional and spiritual ones too. From within my tiny boat, newly humbled by time spent in the vastness of mountains and sea, I have rediscovered some of that humility and reverence, and it feels good.Converting reverence into action, that’s now the challenge. Ninety years ago, Alastair Dunnet’s journey was transformed into recommendations for change. If my own journey through the Highlands can encourage change, then all that wind and wet will have been worthwhile.And you might be wondering whether or not I survived Toe Head. Well, yes, I did – but you’ll need to read the book for the full story.

Kayaking the Sea Roads – Exploring the Scottish Highlands by Ed Ley-Wilson is out now, Whittles Publishing, priced £16.99