Paddling in Lewis (or, "It’s Grimersta Up North")

I doubt whether you’ll have paddled the Grimersta River (Abhainn Ghriomarstaigh). It’s a mere 2km long with a few half-hearted gneiss boulders before it issues into the sea at Loch Ceann Hulabhig, opposite the Calanais standing stones.
It’s unlikely you’ve fished it either, unless you can spare £2000 for 1 rod for a week, as it is reputedly one of the finest salmon rivers in Europe, a secret jealously guarded by the toffs in the know.

One poacher made the pages of the Stornoway Gazette a few years ago by being discovered by the watchers from Grimersta Lodge as he swam around the lodge boats one night dressed in full SCUBA gear. His plea of being out for a quiet evening’s swim was not taken seriously by the Sheriff…….
I was married into a crofting family with excellent poaching credentials in the Uig district of Lewis, and quickly learned that two parallel universes exist in rural Lewis:
1) The toffs, who send their boarding-school educated sons up to spend the summer driving around in Land Rovers, assume the locals are stupid and try to keep them out of the waters where their ancestors fished, by padlocked gates and the like.
2) The locals, who circulate copies of the keys, and, yes, know that the toffs are stupid.

Anyway, being a mountaineer to trade, I borrowed a Pyranha Master in the summer of 99 to see whether I would enjoy paddling after an absence of about 25 years. I had some jolly good fun in the sheltered waters of Uig Bay at high tide, retrieving the skeg when it fell off and that sort of thing.
Anyway the paddling bug had bitten. The following winter I built the Peigi, a green sea kayak in ply/epoxy, named after Peigi-the-dragon (aka the mother-in-law), and it was well used in the summer of 2000 in some quiet coastal paddling in Lewis, after trying it out in the deadly waters of the canal at Ratho.
Last winter the Katie, the red sister of Peigi, was built, and christened at the lagoons on June 20 this year (2001).


Looking at OS map 13 there’s a sort of liquid landscape extending from Grimersta Lodge south by many linked lochs, all the way to the head of Loch Langavat which is on the very border of Harris, though far from the nearest road. This would give a paddle right into the remote interior of Lewis.
I decided that I could give the boat (and me) a reasonable trial by paddling about half of this, as far as the foot of Roineabhal, only 922 feet, but commanding the whole of the interior of Lewis.
In a very wet fortnight this July I found a clear, if breezy, window in the weather and set off late one afternoon from the Grimersta end.

Despite a strong easterly breeze Katie proved equal to Loch Faoghal Charrasan and soon my feeble muscles were in action as I faced a 250m portage carrying my 20kg creation.
This was made slightly easier as the whole thing was paved with small rocks to enable the aforesaid toffs to transfer from one boat, and loch, to another.
Then it was on to Loch Faoghal Chiorabhal and the larger and wider Loch Airigh na h-Airde (yes I can pronounce them!) where the waves and breeze became more of a test. I started to wonder whether fitting a rudder would have been a good idea.
I found a small beach to land, pitched my tent here, fed the inner man and scrambled up Roineabhal to catch the evening sun as it bathed the whole of Lewis and Harris in a golden glow, including the Clisham, a Corbett for those versed in hill-speak.

Reading in the tent at 10 pm, I heard an outboard approaching and got a visit from 3 young watchers who asked if I’d seen any Quads (poaching enters the 21st century). They gave me some trout. One of them was a student from Penicuik (the watcher, not the trout) and the other two were from Lewis.
The estate view seemed to be that it would tolerate the odd bit of poaching "for the pot" but not the mass removal of fish by nets, which depleted stocks.
They were staying in a bothy a mile or so away and even gave me their mobile number in case I had any bother.
No expense spared on this trip, Fiona had flogged me a new head-torch battery in Tiso’s emporium, but I never used it as I could read till about 11.15pm by the light of the sky.

Next morning I was awake at 5.10 and in the water by two minutes to six.
The wind had dropped and it was a joy to be alive. The rest of the world was still in its pit.
I saw a family of black-throated divers, then at a narrow section a large salmon jumped 10m ahead of the boat. By mid morning I was back at the car and reached Uig for breakfast, which included the trout.
By afternoon the rain was back.

The only black spot was the lack of photos due to this novice paddler getting the camera wet. But if you’ve ever been to the Hebrides, you’ll know the memories are enough. It’s a Zen thing………