A few months ago Nick Gracie called me up and asked me if I wanted to take part in the Scottish Islands Peaks Race, this was a race I had always looked at doing, a chance to visit the Scottish Islands and climb some amazing mountains, and also to see the stunning West coast scenery from a yacht.

All too soon the race was upon us, and as usually happens there is a last minute problem, one of the crew was out mountain biking, and fell off his bike damaging his collar bone, and as such being unable to make the race.  So on Thursday Nick and myself were wondering around Keswick getting last minute kit and maps and asking anyone we knew if they could sail and fancied a weekend away.

Cheryl Frost, one of our team mates, was organising the Keswick Mountain Festival, but she took a few minutes out of her hectic schedule to find us an awesome replacement, who duly got a call from us, and (after he checked the weather forecast!) He said yes, so we were on.

We headed up to Oban for Thursday night, getting there just in time for a stunning sunset.  We loaded all our kit onto the free ferry across to the wee marina on the isle of Kerrera along with a group of other racers, all ready to finally meet our crew.  We chatted with all our friends on the ferry over, some who have done the race before, others who were first timers like Nick and myself, and we tried to get as much info about the event as we could.

Sunset in Oban - Looking over to Kerrera

We stepped onto the pontoon and were met by our crew, Mike and Carl, 2 school friends of our good friend Andy Wilson.  Mike and Carl were pretty experienced having taking part in many yacht races including the 3 Peaks Yacht race a couple of times, so we knew we were in good company.

Introductions were made and we were shown around the boat, a new experience for me having only ever sailed a wee dinghy around on a wee lake!  We slept well on the boat and in the morning we headed over for the briefing and kit check, then got the boat and all our kit ready for the first run, a short 6km around Oban. This was in order to spread the boats out as they headed out the narrow entrance to the Oban harbour.

The wind was in our favour heading to Mull, and we shot across the Firth of Lorn into the Sound of Mull, the sail was hectic at the start to get out of the harbour, I wasn’t sure what I was doing, I just tried to pull the correct rope at the correct time, we came though unscathed, so I think it was all ok!

Pulling into Salen after a 3 ½ hr sail Nick and myself had to get our land legs back, as as Carl rowed us ashore we got ready to run.  The first section of the Ben More run was along a long flat road, which seemed to go on forever, but soon we were heading up into the hills.  A gradual climb pulled us up out of the valley and above us towered huge peaks, they were relatively cloud free which gave us stunning 360° views.  The climb to the top was steep and scrambly in places, but we were soon on the top and we had been over taking teams all the way, we overtook our 12^th team on the summit.  The descent was on a great scree slope and with our newly acquired downhill running skills we shot down from the top.  The run back to the boat was long and tough, I really started to struggle in the last 5km and Nick took my bag from me as he was feeling really strong.  We finally got back to the boat after a 4hr 17min run and had climbed up 13 places to 10^th overall, which we were really pleased about.

The run on Mull up Ben More - 37km 1400m climb - 4hrs 17mins

Back on the boat we were beating into the wind, so a lot of tacking was needed to get us back to the Firth of Lorn and south to the Isle of Jura.  Nick and I were below decks after we had eaten our food in the open air to limit queasiness.  We rested well and grabbed some sleep; this was tricky to start with as the boat was jibing from side to side so you had to wedge yourself in tight.

I woke at night and took a look out on deck, and it was a stunning sight, navigation lights from a number of boats, eerie looking mountains and the odd star, what a place we were in.  More food was eaten, which is not easy when the boat is listing over at almost 45°, and I tried to get all my kit ready for the run up the Paps of Jura.

At 6am we sailed into Craighouse bay, and jumped onto the wee dingy to be rowed to shore.  My legs at this time were really tight and did all they could to refuse my pleas to ask them to run, but after a 3km run along the road they started to come back.  I had taken trekking poles for this leg, and they proved to be worth their weight in gold, I felt much stronger a few hours in, and with the clouds being down to about 350m the navigation was tricky, which suited us as I am a good navigator.

The Paps are tough hills, not as high as Ben More, but as there are 3 of them they take their toll on the legs, the ground is also very tricky with scree of varying sizes from tiny rocks to big boulders made very slippery with the wet weather.  We raced most of the Paps with some friends from Aberdeen racing as the Cosmic Hillbashers, and we changed position a few times depending on route choice.

At the mid checkpoint on the coll between 2 Paps there was a TV camera, as the race was being filmed for the BBC Scotland program The Adventure Show, it was a very strange sight to come across in such a remote location.

The final descent from Beinn Shiantaidh was steep with a lot of scree, I knew there was a team ahead of us, but thought they had contoured more, so wasn’t too worried about all the rocks I sent flying down the hill, but as we came out of the clouds I could see them directly below us, still running though, so all was ok, they said they saw a few rocks flying past them!

The run on Jura, 24km 1600m climb, 4hrs 45mins

The run back to the boat was tough, a long run out to the road, then a 5km run back along the road, with the boats in view the whole time, they just never seemed to get closer.  We finished in a time of 4hrs 45mins, a really tough run made harder by the tricky underfoot conditions and the low cloud.  It was a shame we didn’t get a great view from the tops, but as we set sail for Arran the cloud lifted and we were granted an amazing view of the hills from the sea.

We were both really tired after the run, and heartily wolfed down the food that had been prepared for us by our crew, sitting on deck in the sunshine.  Soon after we headed to our cabins to get some rest, we didn’t know it, but we wouldn’t come back on deck for almost 10 hours.

As we sailed south we were being tossed around more and more, it was a mission to reach the toilet, and the best place to be was horizontal in the cabin.  The sea conditions were clearly worsening, and our crew told us that many boats had tacked off course and were no longer visible, whether they had changed to a different course, or had headed for shelter we didn’t know.

Rough seas near the Mull of Kintyre

David at the helm in the biggest seas he'd ever been in

Huge seas throwing us all over the place

At about 6.30pm Mike stuck his head through into the cabin and a wee council of war was had, what were we to do, continue or retire.  It was Mike’s view that the sea was worsening and we were in for a very tough 12hours of big waves, unfavourable tides and strengthening winds.  Nick and I have very limited experience of sailing, and listened to what Mike and Carl had to say.  We then took the group decision that the race would be there next year, and we didn’t want to do anything stupid to get us into trouble, so we turned and headed north to escape the forecast force 8 that was blowing through.

It was a very tough call, we all wanted to finish the race, we were going well, possibly in 8^th place when we left Jura, but we had no idea what lay ahead.  Looking back now it would have been a true battle to have carried on, and I think we took the right decision.  Many teams had already abandoned we found out later, teams on bigger boats with experienced crews had already sought shelter, knowing this we felt a bit better about how we had got on.  I spoke to a friend on a boat that hadn’t left Craighouse Bay, and he told me that a number of boats stayed there for the night, and many had retired before they finished the run.  My friends from Aberdeen bailed 10miles shy of the Mull of Kintyre to head for the Crinan Canal.

The Sailing route, we got to just above the tip of the Mull

We had managed to get close to the point of the Mull, at one point we were closer to Ireland than Scotland, and we would have had to have put in a lot of tacks to get round the point, so we had done well, and been beaten back by the sea.

The cruise back to Ardfern was much more relaxed once we were out of race mode, David, our stand in crewman took a well earned rest having done a superb job helping Mike and Carl, and without him we would have had to turn back much earlier.  He later said that that was the biggest sea he had ever been in.  We arrived into Ardfern at 2am, under a clearing sky, and we all got our heads down for a good sleep.

In the morning we woke to glorious sunshine and stunning scenery, what a special place the West coast is.  After a tidy up on the boat we headed home, tired, battered and bruised from an amazing adventure that I’m sure none of us will forget any time soon.

Ardfern Harbour Sunday morning

At the moment we have no idea what happened with the race, officially you can finish whenever you want, Troon marina is manned by the race till 1800hrs on Monday, and it is only midday on Monday as I write this.  There is nothing online about where people got to, so hopefully over the next few days stories will trickle out of the woodwork.  One story that I have found is by the fastest runners in the race, the SaabSalomon boys, read their report here. – http://www.saabsalomonoutdoorteam.com/2009/05/an-abandoned-assault-on-the-scottish-islands-peaks-record/

I’d like to thank Mike and Carl and David for being a superb crew and taking us as far as we could, looking after us incredibly well, and also being great company.  The boat Highland Spirit certainly lived up to the name and we battled as hard as we could.

Highland Spirit - Our fantastic boat, (note the battered race number on the bow, it should read 48)

Nick and I are really keen to come back next year to try again, we will hopefully take some time off our runs now we have had a bit of a recce, and we know what to expect.

Nick relaxing in the sunshine in Ardfern

Thanks must also go to our sponsors for helping us out.    For Goodness Shakes for aiding our reccovery, Paramo for keeping us warm and dry, OMM for carrying our kit, Leki for taking the strain off our legs, and Helly Hansen for keeping us warm on the run, and of course Nuun for keeping us hydrated and free of cramps.

Bruce