Showing posts with label hebrides. Show all posts
Showing posts with label hebrides. Show all posts

Friday, 29 November 2024

Scotland’s Seas

 

Windy seas near Skara Brae Orkney

Norway makes 60% of its wealth from its seas

Scotland’s seas are over 7.5 times Scotland’s land area.

Scotland has 32% of UKs landmass and 62% of UK sea area with over 900 islands. Scotland’s coastline is double England’s. With over 900 islands, Scotland has a coastline which is approximately double that of England.

 

The Minch water towards the Outer Hebrides are where the Trident submarine patrol. The Scapa flow waters of Orkney is where the British navy were station during the world wars. Scottish waters and rivers host world-famous salmon, langoustines, oysters and lobster. Scotland’s many lochs (over 25,500) and machairs host unique and quality marine life. 

 

Seas north coast

west coast seas

Canada has the longest coastline of any country in the world, but among Scotland, England, and Ireland, Scotland has the longest coastline. 

Scotland's coastline measures approximately 18,000 km, including its many islands, while England's coastline is around 12,400 km and Ireland's is about 7,500 km. 


How big are Scotland’s seas?  We estimate the area of Scotland’s seas to be 462,315 km2 using the definition of the “Scottish zone” in the Scotland Act 1998. Scotland’s seas are nearly six times larger than the land area of Scotland. The figure above reflects the UK Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) adjacent to Scotland, which accounts for 63% of the UK EEZ.

How many islands does Scotland have? Scotland has over 900 islands, of which 118 are inhabited. The most remote Scottish island is Rockall, which is around 300 km from   in the St Kilda archipelago. 

Scotland’s rivers and streams? Scotland has more than 125,000 km of rivers and streams varying from small highland burns to deep, wide lowland rivers such as the Tay. There is also a 220 km canal network in Scotland. There are over 25,500 lochs in Scotland, with the Western Isles and Sutherland having the highest concentration of lochs. SEPA

Scottish waters are a special place for marine habitats and wildlife, thanks to the combination of: 

-  our position at the edge of the European continental shelf

 - Scotland’s long coastline and large area of sea

-  the mixing of warm Gulf Stream currents and cold currents

Seas Oban to Castlebay Barra

Ayrshire coastlines


IslI  Islands. Glacial activity created our highly intricate coastline, which includes around 800 islands mostly off the west and north coasts. 

Coastal habitats including sand dunes, cliff habitats, saltmarsh and saline lagoon are thus a very big part of the Scottish landscape. Machair is a remarkable living landscape that’s unique to Scotland and Ireland.  Scotland’s territorial seas (up to 12 nautical miles from the coast) cover an area greater than the Scottish mainland and islands added together. 


Scotland’s inshore and offshore waters combined make up 13% of all European seas and contain a staggering 8,000 species or more.

The area covered by Scotland's seas is $608,000 km 2 from MHWS out to the limit of the claimed UK Continental Shelf.   With 8.4% of the UK population, Scotland has 32% of the land mass and 62% of the UK sea area.



Friday, 6 March 2020

Year of Scottish Coasts and Islands

waves off the coast of north Uist

This is the year we celebrate Scotland's magnificent coastlines. I’ve been fortunate to visit Scotland’s islands and its North coast. If the weather is kind (as it is in May or the autumn) there is nothing to surpass the wildness, the subtle, shifting light, blinding wind, thunderous waves or Scotland's perfect white sands.




Harris Luskintyre beach


Orkney near Skarra Brae



Orkney

Varasay beach, Hebrides


Saturday, 30 June 2018

Island Nations



Scottish indy is about bringing our island nations together in a more united and stronger way than ever, in an equal partnership. 

By contrast to the Faroe islands the beautiful island of Barra faces a crisis. Barra has the only scheduled flights to a beach airport. Imposed restrictions on non EU workers mean fishing boats are idle and this will effect the major employer, fish processing firm Barra Atlantic. Fishermen from the Philippines islands are desperate to come, but cannot get visas. While exceptions are made for Australian sheep shearers. I recently visited the Western isles and it struck me to have a healthy economy we must care about all our remote regions. 


Respect for diversity is good and we benefit from rigorous debate and co-operation. Why does one culture have to be repressed, to benefit another? Equality and fairness does not mean we are all the same – we are actually very different. What it does mean is equal opportunities, which can’t exist alongside patronage and elitism. After the Grenfell fire and the fight for justice, Carillion and more disasters do people still buy into this fake system …. 

The Scots language has been protected within the EU by a European charter. One third of today’s population speak a modern version of the same language used by Burns. Will old Scotia’s heritage, laws, rights, language, culture and arts be protected once we leave the EU? Will our wildlife be protected?

Indy means freedom of choice, being mature, regaining confidence, and adaptable in our wee nation - not to suit bankers. Why don’t the Highland and islands set up their own small, non profit banking system, or mobile broadband (as in the Faroes). Indy will enable change as we build a country best suited to Scotland individual needs, geography, immigration and resources (for example farming is opposite to England’s)   
Indy isn’t about Edinburgh or London, but about more local decision making and much smaller councils. Indy is about finding our own way in order to make the most of our resources. 

The islands were not remote at all – and in those days of the Neolithic Brodgar of Ness as historian Tom Devine says – “the land divides, the sea unites.”

‘Fortune favours the brave. ‘
’To harness our unique potential.’
evening sun on Orkney

Scotland – 5.5m population 
Iceland – 350.000 population
Denmark – 6.5m population134.76/km2
Finland – 5.5m  population - 16/km2
Ireland – 6.5m: Population density ‎77.8 /km2

**Excellent series of programs by journalist Lesley Riddoch’s NATION and with Phantom River films,on successful small countries requires funding. The first program on the Faroe islands – 50,000 land mass,18 barren islands,  All makes Scotland look a substantial and not so wee place, as we’ve been fooled into believing, after all! https://www.youtube.com/NATIONLesleyRiddoch

Also highly recommend Allan Little’s ‘Friends in the North’ BBC - 

Harris beach

Thursday, 31 May 2018

Exploring Hebridean Isles: on the Edge

chapel Saint Barr on Barra
boat Oban to Barra
beach on south Uist

We took the Oban ferry to Castlebay on the isle of Barra. On the edge of exploring the whipped dark blue seas held time aloft and the tides carries us across. The bright westward skies shone brightly as we sailed oe’r swells and past looming mountains….
To the edge of Scotia’s Western Isles, to their stunning and varied landscapes, beaches, rocky outcrops, purple mountains, and a haven for wildlife, the roar of the Atlantic surrounds all here.  
This is a place of strong contradictions – from rugged coastlines, to the largest stretches of clear white sands and turquoise waters; and in the late light the bluest softest hues. 

I read of the great Bards and Myth makers. I read of the crofters forced to leave their homelands for unknown fates in far away lands – to Canada, to Indian reservations and not to the farms that had been promised and of how they missed the Atlantic seas.  At the  Castlebay museum I read of Father John MacMillan.  North Uist and south Uist are Protestant and Catholic – and they get along! 
Caisteal Chiosmull castle Barra
And the great war devastated these islands. Before the war Barra was the centre for the herring industry. The war meant all the young men left to fight in the navy. Then in 1921, 22, 23 there was UK government sponsorship to leave the islands. (to populate the colonies with white people)  The population went from 3,700 to 1,800.  Some managed to return, and some died on the journey. I read of the clan chief Macdonald in Edinburgh and his deciding on the fate of those living on the island. I read of Colonel Gordon of Cluny who bought the islands and ordered the clearances to make way for sheep over people.
Vatersay beach
Barra airport
Barra has a 17th century castle Caisteal Chiosmull castleat the entrance to its bay at Castelbay, owned by the McNeills. Similar to other islands, the drive on the west coast has picture perfect sandy beaches, and the drive on the east coast is rocky and more mountainous. To the north lies the only beach with scheduled flights and we had lunch at the café here.

Out on the peninsula we found the small chapel of Saint Barr.  South of Barra, lies the quiet island of Vatersay connected by a small bridge. We took photos at what could have been a tropical island, although there was cool there. Another photographer told us of the shrine to Eilidh MacLeod, who lost her life a year ago at the Manchester bombing. So sad she left this beautiful place to die at the Arianna Grande concert.

Vatersay


We then took the small ferry over the often difficult crossing to Eriskay and  Uist. Uist has large mountains on it east. We found the bonny location for the Polochar Inn and the drive over the causeways., funded by the EU We visited the interesting Uist museum which told the stories of the forced evictions to Canada. There was the nature reserve  to protect endangered birds such as corncrakes. This is part of an important European Conservation Machair environment, conservation, project to save endangered spices. I wondered, will the UK fund and set up a UK Conservation Machair project, after Brexit?

Uist beach

waves at nature reserve Uist

Early on the Friday we headed across on the carefully manoeuvred crossing to the more prosperous isle of Harris. Harris is the most developed Western isles. I had expected it to be more isolated and remote than Lewis. The Harris beaches on the west coast look out over the welcoming Atlantic and are well worth photographing. Tarbert is nestled in its northern mountains – a ferry port with Harris Gin and Harris Tweed shopsThen we took the treacherous Gold Road over the rocky eastern side and stayed at the beautifully renovated old school house.


On Lewis its worth visiting its historic sites – the Callanais stones, the blackhouse village, the Carloway Broche.  Then we headed for the port of Stornaway - it was a Sunday and all was closed except for the church and one hotel - and took the modern Caledonian McBrae ferry, which was like a floating cafeteria, back to the picturesque highland town of Ullapool.

the Callanais stones on Lewis

Ullapool
Carloway Broche