On the weekend of the 17th of October we left for a totally new experience on the other side of the North Sea. Full of enthusiasm we entered the island where they drive on the ‘wrong’ side of the road, use a weird measure for distances and have a different currency than more or less the rest of Europe. Luckily the language compensates a lot on the difficulty of traveling, as the majority of the inhabitants of the United Kingdom manages to speak very proper English.



The destiny was Fort William. This area is located on the foot of the Nevis Mountain near the North East coast of Scotland. It’s famous for it’s rough rocky coast that supplies its huge lochs with ocean water through a reasonable tidal change over the day and quickly changes into the main Scottish highlands. With many rain, these highlands fill up with water and offer a little paradise for the creek boaters. We aimed for having sunny days and therefore focused more on the tidal beauties of this country.



The team was diverse; 3 Dutch, 1 French, 1 Swiss and a bunch of English that did all the investigation on getting the right timing on our tidal adventure.



The tidal adventure would take place at the Falls of Lora. Due to a significant change between low and high tide, the ocean fills up the loch Etive. Once the ocean returns to low tide, a current exists out of the loch. At the Falls of Lora happens to be a narrowing gap of the river as well as a clear gradient. This combination offers, in certain tidal levels, a high volume rapid that’s full of massive whirlpools and waves. A great opportunity for a freestyle paddler, as you’re finally not depended on rain or snow melt, but you can easily track your play days, it seemed…

     

It just didn’t really happen to be so during our trip. We sure did find the rapid and we sure did find the whirlpools. We just missed out on the promised 4 hours wave time a day, as we surfed in total 1 hour in three days time! The oceanologist that can explain me this mysterious appearance, would be of great worth for every planned Falls of Lora mission in the future.



Luckily the weather didn’t seem that sunny as expected, so the Etive creek, reduced some pain for some of us. And luckily Scotland offers some great specialties in its culture, named whisky and pub food. Which still brought this mission to a success. But one thing is for sure; it will take a lot more next time to get me back on that island again...    


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