Mallaig to idyllic Canna 31 May 2024

  

Canna bay with moorings, ferry terminal, cafe, church and big house.

It’s been a lovely day today.  It started well with croissants from the Mallaig harbour bakery for breakfast.  They are soooo… good.

Followed by a gentle decamp from the marina for a two and a half hour journey westwards on a reasonably level sea. Coffee and sweet treats from the Mallaig harbour bakery half way along.  What more could you ask for?!  Actually we could have asked for a bit more sun and heat.  It was a fairly cold journey.

We arrived into the bay at Canna at about 13.00 to find all but one of the visitors moorings available, so we quickly hooked up and went ashore to have lunch at the Cafe Canna.  There is no pontoon to land at, so it’s through the weed onto the beach, and then carry the tender up a bit.

No more driving of boats today, so we are allowed a pint of Jacks at lunchtime.  Luvly jubly.

And the food was excellent. Coronation eggs with crisp dulse and leaves, a steak sandwich with potato salad, and smoked salmon with scrambled egg.

Canna is made of layers of volcanic lava - basalt - and looks like Co Antrim, but bigger and greener. Quite bucolic. The island is owned and managed by the National Trust for Scotland for nature conservation purposes.  There are large populations of seabirds, eagles, corncrakes and valuable machair habitat.

There is a community shop, next to the cafe, that is open 24/7, is well stocked, and unmanned.  There is an honesty box for cash and an honesty card payment machine - it helps to restore one’s faith in human nature.  After lunch we walked westward along the shore and found the Canna Kitchen, another honesty retail outlet - selling jams, garlic salt and granola, all homemade. 

Canna Kitchen - we bought blackcurrant jam apparently made just this morning, and Seville marmalade.  Susie came away with rhubarb and ginger jam.  We’re all happy.

Our walk took in three churches - not bad for an island with a population of 15 - though strictly one of these is on Sanday (Sanday is a small island attached to Canna by a short bridge). There was also the Shearing Shed where you could take shelter, make yourself tea or coffee, use free wifi and chill out.  The whole island feels very welcoming (Rathlin could learn a thing or two).



The boat bird list today is pretty good with 30 species - nothing unusual, but it includes Cuckoo at Mallaig and Canna, and a Bonxie at Canna.

I also did a Canna and Sanday bird list, which also achieved 30 species.  The highlight of this list is a Corncrake craiking between two houses on Sanday.  Brilliant.

Tending the BBQ on the rear deck at about 19.30. Tough job, but someone has to do it.

Our route:




































































































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