Walk 4 – Mr. Smith’s Bay to the Heart Beat Seat

“Hark, now hear the sailors cry,

Smell the sea, and feel the sky,

Let your soul & spirit fly, into the mystic.”

Van Morrison

I would like to start this walk with a small tribute to Wendell Berry. I found out that he died on 31st of August this year, the day before I did this walk. What a loss.

My favourite ever poem is one of his. In a few simple words he sums up much of how I feel, and I will be forever grateful for this one poem alone, never mind all the other literary contributions he has made.

Simply saying the title relaxes me, as it invites me into the soothing power of presence.

The Peace of the Wild Things

When despair for the world grows in me

and I wake in the night at the least sound

in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,

I go and lie down where the wood drake

rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.

I come into the peace of wild things

who do not tax their lives with forethought

of grief. I come into the presence of still water.

And I feel above me the day-blind stars

waiting with their light. For a time

I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

Surely peace is a practice worthy of pursuit. But sadly it is not how our modern world works.  Instead we are stuck inside the industrial growth economic model that wages a continual war on people and places.

As this war against life plays out around us and despair grows our neurotransmitters are hijacked by hand held devices we increasingly have to have. Made drunk on drip feed dopamine we become more passive and complicit, no bother to this destructive system.

Encouraged to fight amongst ourselves, throwing insults into the digital ether algorithmic worm holes funnel us deeper into division. All this serves the system. It keeps us busy and distracted from our true power.

Together, connected, in community we are actually mighty.

Wendell’s poem reminds us, there is another way. We can reject the lure of our electronic anaesthetic and instead head for the peace of the wild things. Here lie many of the answers we need. Mother Nature is our greatest teacher.

Walk 4

I step out and everything slows down, my heartbeat, my pace, my breathing, my mind. My senses start to work, my field of vision expands and the peace settles over me.

Not for long though, as I have to cross the still stinky discharge near the cafe, it might actually be worse now. I have reported it to SEPA. Next comes the lumpy grass along which stretches a tideline splattered with dried up sludge. Maybe its natural and benign, I do not know.

Finally, around the headland a long, largely untainted stretch of shore. Instead of the dreaded plastic distress I can enjoy the black rocks and boulders giving way to gorgeous flowing tresses of autumnal seaweeds. A thick coat of rich rusty orange, yellow and brown covers the lower shore.

And then the lichens, swirls of intense colour draped across rocks, running along cracks, spreading across boulders. The edges where shore meets woods are full of blue scabious flowers, ferns and deep mossy grass.  I become lost in the looking.

My notebook entry:

Willow, alder and birch woodland to my right. Views up and down the loch.

Peaceful.

I rest at Rhuba Riabhach. Piles of lichen covered boulders sit on a long flat rock that falls away steeply into the sea. The Learn Gaelic dictionary site says this means grizzled person or brindled. I sit in the sun and write, sketch and then explore the edges. I know from maps the serpulid worm reefs are very close to the shore here, hidden in the depths.

Another notebook entry:

“Looking around there is no view without the very obvious sign of humans. This is not a wilderness, it’s industrialised, commercialised and utilised. Nature the commodity. Why, when seen as such, would we consider protecting her? “

Right here on Loch Creran we see the same as plays out across the planet, industry locust-like devouring one resource after another to keep the appetite for more fed. It’s a disaster.

Yes Wendell I too feel that despair grow in me.

Thankfully, despite the wooden cabin, old concrete slipway and discharge pipe, the next bay is a very peaceful place. The water is clear and I can see little fish swimming around. I’d like to snorkel here.

What makes Loch Creran of global significance is that serpulid worms form reefs here, all around the loch. Nature Scot explains more here. In 2018 they were recorded as in “substantial decline”. How are they now?  Why are they not monitored regularly, especially given their global significance?

Next I tackle the edge of the old Sea Life Centre grounds. The rocks are steep but I manage to scramble along ledges near the edge and spot many worm tubes on the rocks just under the water. I also find vivid green breadcrumb sponges, at least that’s what I think they are, hanging off low water rocks.

Past all the old Sea Life Centre piping lying on the shore I find my greatest thrill of all, lying at the low tide line a live native oyster right in the middle of the bay. Could there be more?

 

Wouldn’t it be amazing to find out there are still native oyster beds here.

On the old pier there is a tyre which once hung in the water. It is covered in worm tubes. In fact everywhere I look around here there there is evidence of worm activity. Over the side I see shells and starfish. I don’t think I’ve done justice in describing how beautiful, rich and vibrant this little section of the loch feels. It pulses with life.

What a travesty it would be to allow any industry to operate anywhere near here.

Sadly though it might be time to rename this place –  Gael Force bay.  They bought this land and intend to manufacture here. If their plans go-ahead they will blast away some of the rocks I’ve walked along to create a slipway to launch the fish farm cages they make. What impact will that have on all the sea life around here?

It can’t be right.

I hang my fourth felt pod on an oak tree by the shore. My statement, my protest, my challenge –  we can choose to do no harm, they could choose to do no harm, the regulatory bodies could choose to prevent harm, but they do not.

The last stretch takes me below the old railway line where huge supporting walls are still intact after more than one hundred years.

The pollution begins. An old floating platform lies abandoned under the trees, some old buoys, a plastic box and then my heart sinks as the bricks begin and I remember my 2016 walk.

“Firstly I spotted some corrugated iron sticking out of the earth, then lots of bricks and concrete strewn all over the shore, and then clothes hanging on the branches with the seaweed. Then I came across the source; black plastic bags of stuff nearly covered with earth but exposed enough for me to see them.”

Mairi 2016

It’s all still there tumbling onto the shore, blatant fly tipping, normally out of sight. As I pick my way over the piles of bricks I suddenly realise something.  The issues around Loch Creran, the plastic and pollution, are all coming from fly tipping and the industries and businesses along its shore.

Loch Creran is being treated like a dump.

I scramble up towards the cycle track with my treasurers, giant egg wrack, oak leaves, some blue rope and a piece of metal all set to become symbolic art of some sort.

There to my surprise is a seat, the Heartbeat Seat, placed by Argyll Beats Cardiovascular Disease. A little oasis of hope. There are good people in this world. It’s peaceful here looking out across this loch, despite the rope and fencing wire piled nearby. What has happened to the world, illustrated right here along the shoreline of this loch? How can we treat such a magnificent and significant place like a giant rubbish tip? It’s a tragedy.

“The sea is calling for our help; will we answer?”

Olivia Smith