Black rats, blue men and 2 kinds of rhubarb

Camus Mor, north of Uig on Skye, has a fine, but basic, campsite. I'd pitched up with a couple of days free but no exact idea of what I was going to do. The forecast was wet, and I was suffering from a very sore neck. I was hoping to go to the Shiant Islands, but wasn't yet certain if I would manage to paddle the length of the bay.
The Camus Mor campsite is home to the Macurdie exhibition.

Much as I like Skye and the Scottish north-west, I wouldn't like to live there. I suspect a degree of cabin fever gets in to the locals over the winter, and the Macurdie exhibition is a symptom of this.

The brightest part of the day was just before I settled down for the night.

Breakfast proved to a major disappointment. Mrs CWW makes some excellent rhubarb jam, and I'd brought a jar to add to my porridge. At least I thought I had. It turned out that I had actually brought the equally delicious, but not so appropriate, rhubarb chutney. I discovered this after the addition to my porridge, which was a bad start to the day.
There's a handy slipway a couple of hundred yards from the campsite. My boat was pointing straight towards Fladda-chuain. After taking kidney killing doses of ibuprofen I set off, still with the option of returning to Skye if things weren't going well.

Fortunately, the paddling seemed to help the pain as well as the ibuprofen did, and as long as I didn't look backwards I was fine.
Though I was paddling with a neap tide, I was also against a mild breeze and gentle swell. This caused quite a lot of ructions in the water and dissuaded me from exploring the cliffs of Lord MacDonald's Table. On a better day the islands here would be lovely, but it was grey, wet, unseasonably cold, and the swell off Fladda-chuain was being ramped up to a considerable size by the opposing tide. Once in it I was definitely not going back to Skye! It was quite some time before I could relax for the miles out to the Shiants.
Arrival was quite a relief. There is a wonderful camping spot beside the bothy.

Just as I arrived, I met Nick. He was about to depart in the opposite direction. He's on a quest to paddle round all the life boat stations in Scotland, which knocks my trip in 2013 firmly into the long grass. He can be followed on Twitter (@LifeAfloat).
There were a couple of ornithologists staying on the island. They were tracking razorbills by attaching GPS trackers to them. This seemed a bit rough on the razorbills to me, but they explained that the devices were a lot smaller than mine, and they only used the biggest, toughest looking birds (ie, ones over 80g).
There's an interesting book about the Shiant Islands, called "Sea Room". It was written by Adam Nicholson, who I think also runs the website about them. The book details the remarkably long human history of these fairly small rocks.
The website also has some information on the plan to rid the islands of black rats, which presumably arrived from a ship wreck. They are decimating the bird life, and visitors have to take precautions about food robbery. A bit like bears in America, I think. I wondered if they were responsible for the skeleton in front of my tent.

Looking back to Fladda Chuain

I set off to go for a walk, but didn't get far. The black rats had certainly not deterred the bonxies, which were nesting in great numbers. They made it abundantly clear that I wasn't wanted in the vicinity, and I certainly didn't want to be on the sharp end of their beaks. I started to come under sustained attack and retreated quickly.

The following day was grey and damp again, but very calm. I departed early for the Lewis coast.

My main priority for the day was to avoid the Blue Men, who infest this stretch of water. They are notorious creatures who wreck ships. It seems that no one who sees them ever survives (unless by quoting bits of poetry to them). Since I'm not too good at remembering poetry, I stayed ready to shut my eyes at a moment's notice. It didn't prove necessary, though. I think they only come out in bad weather.
Puffins brightened up the dull day, and though there were no blue men there was a green buoy (sorry, that pun only works in the UK).

I had thought about camping on the Lewis coast, but there was the prospect of Cal-Mac ferry strikes, it was raining, and I was still a bit discouraged by the porridge/ rhubarb issue. I therefore pressed on, pausing only at the ruins of Bhalamus. It's one of these haunting and melancholy spots which the Outer Isles have more than their share of. This house was probably build by one of the men who cleared the original crofters. It would take the best part of a day to walk to this spot.

Eventually I reached Tarbert, home of the most picturesque ironmonger in the world.

It seemed odd to be finishing a journey here, it's clearly a place to start adventures from. I trekked over to inspect the portage across the island. It would take no more than 15 minutes, and it might be my next trip. It cheered me to see that the local school kids were doing sea kayaking for their gym lesson. A wonderful place indeed.