South along the cliffs

Coming south along the cliffs towards Sandsend and on to Whitby

South to Whitby

 Looking south from Sandsend to Whitby, the famous Abbey you can see to the right and a close up picture below. the Abbey was last used as a Benedictine monastory before it was disestablished in the reformation under king Henry viii.

 Another famous gem to come from this coast line is Whitby jet, jet is a geological material and is  considered to be a minor gemstone. jet is not considered a true mineral as it is of organic origin being made from decaying wood under extremely high pressure.

Leaving Sandsend

Paddling out from Sandsend north along the cliffs

Looking south

Whitby in the distance.
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Pack up

Had a good paddle besides the wind was howling to start off with paddled north around the cliffs from sandsend the south back to Whitby then return to sandsend enjoyable day
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Spot

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Spot Adventure

To follow the progress of my expedition around Skye follow it with Spot Adventure, there is a link on the site links at the bottom of the main page. If you would like to know more about the Spot location device go to
http://www.findmespot.com/

Harpoon At A Venture

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The Basking Shark in Scotland

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History Basking Shark

When I paddle around the coastline of an area I like to find out about part of its history the good and bad periods, the people, wildlife and how the area was formed in geological terms.

When paddling a few weeks ago on Skye from the small village of Elgol out to the Island of Soay, I had a brief knowledge of the history of Soay and Gavin Maxwell and his enterprise of hunting Basking Sharks. I did a little research after that trip to find out more about his exploits on the west coast of Skye, I found  a couple of interesting books that if you are interested they a well worth the read.

The first book is by Gavin Maxwell  titled "Harpoon At a Venture"  charting the beginings of his enerprise shark fishery on Soay and the developments of catching and the equipment.

The second book by Denis Fairfax titled  "The Basking Shark in Scotland "  covers a full history of the fishery of the shark. including anatomical and biological references to the shark.  
  

Pen y Ghent

A day off kayaking. Going to stretch those legs beautiful morning in the Yorkshire Dales
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Tidal sill Soay Harbor

Elgol to Loch Coruisk

sky on skye paddle

The amazing sky calm waters, heading from Loch Coruisk over to Soay

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