Rubha na Codha

Taken from the small sound between Mull and Frank Lockwood's Island, this marks the point where a sea kayaker paddling towards Loch Buie turns the corner onto more exposed coast towards the end of an already long exposed passage. A week in early March saw unusually stable high pressure over Britain, with no wind, and hardly any swell in the Firth of Lorn, so this committing stretch of coast was unexpectedly easy for this early in the season, enabling me not only to paddle, but to take lots of photographs on the way.

The banded sedimentary rocks that form the lowest part of the cliffs of the southern tip of the Laggan peninsula, and Frank Lockwood's Island, predate the volcanic rocks which dominate most of Mull. These come from the Mesozoic era, and dip slightly northwards into the land. They had been uncovered and eroded before the great Tertiary volcanic eruptions which extended over much of the west of Scotland presaging the opening of the Atlantic Ocean. The overlying lava flows thus covered an uneven surface, basalt filling in dips and hollows in the original landscape. This unconformity sinks below sea level north of Rubha nan Fear, so all the more distant, grey, rock outcrops are basalt.

The ridge extending to the west from the cylindrical, 'Vanessa style', trig point. Creach Beinn is the mountain in the distance.

The Allt an Tiadhain drains a glen on the south side of the Laggan Forest. The land is mostly grass covered.

The Rowan Loch is missing its tree now. A lochan on Druim Fada.

The plateau of the Laggan Forest, the strange shaped peninsula on the south coast of Mull is mostly grassy with basalt outcrops.

Druim Fada is Laggan's highest hill at 405m. The south side is steep before rolling down to the Firth of Lorne. Below this scarp is a narrow lochan unnamed on the OS map.

The flat summit of the peninsula with a vanessa trig pillar.

Crag on Druim Fada with an east descent route through a gap down to Loch Buie.

The shoreline is stone and pebbles, but the ground in the anchorage is sand. Holding appears to be good, with reasonable shelter from, clockwise, southwest to north.

The remains of what was probably a small black house or bothy lie to the north side of the shoreline. To the right is Rubha nam Fear, with the Garvellachs and Scarba in the background.

The trig point on the summit of Druim Fada.

Below the cliffs of Aoineadh Mhéinis, the wave-cut platform sticks out an extra 150m at Rubha Aoineadh Mhéinis. There was not much swell when this photo was taken in very calm conditions under a high pressure system, somewhat after high tide on neaps, but still the waves are washing over the rocks. On a spring tide with the sort of swell that this wide part of the Firth of Lorn exposed to the southwest gets, the sea must crash over this whole promontory, readily explaining the complete lack of vegetation.