Orkney, East Mainland

Time for a bit of rockhopping. My usual paddling style is to stay offshore and just blast past all he interesting bits without really looking left or right, so this is a little different. I paddled with Mary, organiser of the Paddle Orkney 'do' at the weekend and she promised to complain if I missed out any of the good bits.

Launching at Holm Kirk gave us a short warm up before the fun started at Rose Ness. The caves in the cliffs were just amazing and I wished I had taken a torch. One particular cave had three connected entrances in the shape of a letter Y, and the water was calm enough to paddle through all of them.

After a brief lunch stop we continued on through the Copinsay Pass and round to the East coast of Deerness where we met a very friendly fisherman who gave me a fantastic lobster. The creature was named 'Lobbie' and deposited in my front hatch for the remainder of the journey. I'm not sure what Lobbie will have made of my rockhopping antics, but he did make a fantastic starter course later in the evening.

The highlight of the padling was a visit to a feature called the Gloup, a huge long cave with a collapsed roof, and more cave continuing beyond. The picture doesn't really do it justice.

This is Lobbie.

And here he is again.