Kayak Summer Isles, Priest Island

The Summer Isles are an archipelago of around 20 islands within the Wester Ross Marine Protected Area in the North West Highlands of Scotland. The area has long been a Mecca for sea kayakers and rightly so. Pristine seas, mountains views, deserted islands for wild camping, rock arches and tunnels and an abundance of wildlife make the Summer Isles a top sea kayaking destination.

Tanera Mor is perhaps the best know island of the Summer Isles group and is the largest of them. It used to be a small fishing station, then it was famous for its post office and now it is the only island with permanent habitation, but in private ownership. Most people access the Summer Isles from Ullapool and Achiltibuie.

Our destination for this sea kayaking adventure was one of the smaller islands, Priest Island. From the Ullapool side of Loch Broom this is the furthest away island, so instead of approaching from the north we approached from the south. Our starting point was Mellon Udrigle beach which is often voted one of the top 10 beaches in Scotland in the polls. Priest island lies about 6km off shore from the mainland so the only way there is an open sea crossing.

Priest Island (Eilean a Chleirich) is probably most famous as an RSPB reserve and is home to one of the largest storm petrel colonies in the UK as well as coastal nesting seabirds, pygmy shrews and otters.

History: The name may well have come from the fact that the island was an “early Christian retreat”. The 1794 ‘Statistical Accounts of Scotland’ states that “there is a large ‘cove’ on the south side of Priest Island, said to have been the alternative home of a ‘Popish priest’.” This “cove” is probably one of the caves on the island which “has been divided by a drystone wall from floor to roof with an opening for communication between the two compartments”.

Harvie Brown visited the island on July 4, 1884 and “saw the remains of old crofts, and a curious and perfect circle of stones, lying flat on their sides with the smaller ends towards a common centre, and sunk flush with the surface of the short green sward”.

Special guests: The island had some infamous residents for a while. From September 1975 until the summer of 1976 the fugitives Jim Miller and John Bellord hid on Priest Island. Their story made front page headlines and was the subject of two television documentaries: BBC Everyman: Miller and Bellord, in 1980 and another made by Cineflix, a Canadian film company in 2008.

A manhunt had been launched for Miller and Bellord in September 1975 after they left their Sussex home after a final party, with two black attache cases thought to be filled with cash, by helicopter. Postcards were sent home after arriving in Calais but, far from slipping into a Continental break, they were in fact on a boat back to Dover where their friend, Geoff Green was waiting to take them to the west coast of Scotland in a Ford Cortina estate.

Sidney “Jim” Miller, 56, and John Bellord, 48, are said to have lived on Priest Island for 262 days in three tents sheltered in a ruined bothy with Storm Petrel omelettes and brewed peat tea to become their diet.

Life on Priest Island couldn’t have been further away from the Champagne parties of their hometown of Brighton or the cocktail hours enjoyed with their business associates on the motor racing sponsorship scene.

Miller and Bellord were later imprisoned for six years for their scam. They had set up a chain of more than 20 shops supposedly selling organs to churches but acquired instruments through bogus credit applications with HP companies and banks. Bellord, following his release from jail, said: “The island had reaffirmed our belief in the simple things and helped to clear away a mass of valueless and extraneous paraphernalia to which, like so many, had cluttered our minds.”

Wildlife: Today the island is a SSSI and a Special Protection Area, as well as being part of one of Scotland’s first Marine Protected Areas.

Frank Fraser Darling the ecologist and ornithologist stayed on Priest Island in 1936 where he counted and studied the birds. He describes the large number of seabirds found there.  However the recent decline in seabird populations has hit Priest Island hard. In her article ‘The Lost Birds of the Summer Isles’ Caroline Schofield describes the fact that ‘over the past forty years the numbers of fulmars, shags and gulls have all dropped significantly’. She says that ‘The 300 occupied sites for fulmar have dropped to less than 50’. On our paddle round the island we didn’t see even one nest site for Fulmar (2020). RSPB figures show that in 1999 there were still 4,947 storm petrels recorded on Priest Island and despite a decline between 1999 and 2004 the population recovered to approximately 4,259 in 2014.

Our journey to Priest Island

June 28^th 2020 and the weather was set calm for the day, with potentially the odd shower during the day. Near ideal conditions with minimal swell. We timed our launch so that we would be circumnavigating the island at high tide to access the islands tunnels, arches and caves. It is also important to note this visit was timed after the start of the main seabird nesting season and most breeding cliff birds would now have large chicks or fledglings.

An 8.30am launch; paddling off the sandy beach at Mellon Utricle is always a great way to start a sea kayaking trip.  The first 20 minutes we followed the coast north to the point nearest Priest island before heading off on the open water crossing which took just under an hour. Only a slight swell, it was great conditions and overcast so not too hot.

Mid channel we paddled through a raft of razorbills and spotted a puffin. Then there was a break in the waves and a harbour porpoise appears about 100m from us. The tiny dorsal fin and small size showed us this wasn’t a dolphin but a solitary harbour porpoise. The harbour porpoise is one of the smallest marine mammals and it took no notice of us as it headed for Little Loch Broom and passed on 10m from the kayaks.

A few minutes later the passenger ferry that runs from Ullapool to Stornoway appeared in the distance. This is the main ferry that links Lewis in the Outer Hebrides to the mainland at Ullapool.

The Calmac ferry looked huge but didn’t create much of a wake.  It has to be one of the most scenic ferry routes in Europe, mountain views of Assynt, passing the Summer Isles and the chance of seeing dolphins and minkie whales in the Minch between the mainland and Lewis. This modern ferry leaves the mainland at Ullapool which is a planned town designed by Thomas Telford. The original route had a paddle steamer called Ondine which operated on the route around 1870. In 1885 the route was altered from Stornaway to Strome Ferry because the railway arrived at Kyle of Lochalsh. The ferry route returned to Ullapool in 1973 with the arrival of roll-on roll-off ferries.

Once we arrived at Priest Island we decided to circumnavigate the island in a clockwise direction so we would complete the tunnel at the north end of the island at high tide before our lunch break. The sea cliffs were the beautiful red Torridonian sandstone of the area and had many wonderful rounded hollows where the rock had been eroded. There were not many nesting seabirds, we didn’t see one fulmar and only a few pairs of razorbills on the cliffs. There were black guillemots (Tysties) on the water. Much of the island is cliff right down to the shore so there are limited opportunities for landing on the west side of Priest Island.   There were plenty of caves to explore where there were hundreds of trapped moon jellyfish.

As we paddled the northern shore we spotted the arch which is a tunnel between the west and east side of the island. With little swell it was an easy kayak through the tunnel, it was so good we went back and went through again.

Only short paddle to the boulder beach which gives access to the island and the RSPB nature reserve. We settled down for a quick lunch as even hear there were midges about. During lunch an adult sea eagles (white tailed eagle) flew over us being mobbed by two great skuas (Bonxies).

After lunch we spend about an hour hiking around the island on the rough tracks to make sure we didn’t disturb and petrel nests. Lots of Juniper and marsh plants like Ragged Robin.  It is a lovely island with internal freshwater lochs. The RSPB have a small hut on the island, and we walked from there to the far side of the island where the stone circles and ruins are marked on maps.

Once back on the water we paddled past another tunnel but unfortunately the tide was too high for us to sneak through the archway. Then on around the south side of the island before we attempted the open crossing back to the mainland. Once again we were lucky and the sea was clam. After about an hour we were back on the beach at Mellon Utricle. A great day out – Kayak Summer Isles Priest Island.

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