Port na Mheirlich - towards Plockton, Raasay and Skye

all images COPYRIGHT asserted - David Geddes at The Open Sky

A short distance from our solitary cottage, is the steeply shelving shingle beach at Port na Mheirlich. The Gaelic translates as Port of the Thieves, but it is known throughout the district as 'Smugglers'. The view faces south south west towards the village of Plockton famous for its seafood restaurants, attractive seafront cottages and its palm trees growing in the sheltered calm of the extreme eastern limits of the Gulf Stream. Beyond Plockton is the Eilean a Chat (the little island of the cats), and then Raasay and then Skye with its Cuillin mountains.

It would be crime not to visit Smugglers with a camera, for the light there is fantastic at all times of the year. Even after the gloaming, when the contrast is poor and the sun has gone, there are pastel reflections in the water of a constantly surging tide. Taken with a higher than normal ISO setting these colours can be teased out with a little Photoshop adjustment in levels and saturation. A graded neutral density filter is normally employed when the sun is still above the horizon - although I am getting adept at using the gradient tool in layers.

Smugglers is a place that we are fond of. We occasionally met divers and campers, some of whom arrive from the sea. We launch our sea kayaks from the shingle at all points of the tide. Our chocolate Labrador swims there even on the coldest days, fondest of ending a long hot day on the ridges with a soothing swim. Sometimes we join her.

We can catch Pollock and Cod on the incoming tide which surges towards the straum (Nordic for 'tidal race') from which this place takes its name. Otters have a holt in the jumbled rocks above the beach. Dolphins plunder the fish on the nutrient rich tide and bring their young for the easy living.

I wander along the high tide debris of crab and urchin shells, for there are always shards of pottery to be found. Some of these are quite old with hand painted designs. Many more have stamped patterns. Occasionally very old broken ornamental glass is collected. Glazed terracotta is common. I once found a flint scraper many hundreds of miles from the nearest source of flints. All my best finds finish under the glass of the coffee table in the panoramic lounge.  Here above the beach, once abounded the hazel groves favoured by seaborne Mesolithic families. Thousands of years after them the Vikings would have pulled their war galleys up onto the beach, as would the MacDonalds and Mackenzies who warred over the nearby Strome Castle. It was blown up in 1602 and the MacDonalds evicted for ever.

The cliffs are cloaked with hazel, alder, sessile oak, rowan and birch. Underneath the ancient boughs is a layer of deep moss smothering the fallen branches, consuming and blanketing the rocks and woods. I love it here, still and without noise, and mostly without people. Especially as the dark falls at eventide.