Beautiful Sanna

Faced with another glorious spring day, we were at Sanna before ten and heading for our favourite among the string of sandy bays that make the place so very special.  It's on the north side of the Sanna Burn, near Sanna Point, and it's wonderfully secluded.  It's also shallow, so great for the children to paddle in.  Ardnmaurchan Point lighthouse is in the distance, with Coll just visible along the horizon.

But before we could scramble down to the beach we had our first excitement of the day.  An RNLI lifeboat came past at speed, heading from the direction of Mallaig towards Coll.

Each time we go to this bay the sea has sculpted the sand into different shapes.  Today the centre of what is normally a wide beach was a pool of sea water with a sandy bar between it and the sea.  The island is Sgeir Ghobhlach, the forked skerry.

The children were quickly at work with their buckets and spades....

...while their parents once again took to the ocean in their wetsuits....

....and The Diary amused itself by digging around amongst the flotsam and jetsam at the back of the bay, and found the source of a faint perfume we'd noticed as we arrived.  The dead seal seemed to be clutching a plastic bottle full of a tarry liquid.

Back at the beach the parents had emerged from the water, their skin an interesting shade of pink from the cold.

Leaving them to warm up we walked across the rocks to the north side of the Point, to where we could look across to Muck and Rum.  The cumulus above Rum reminded us of the clouds that sit over West Indian islands under the Southeast Trades.

As we walked back across the hills to the bay a small pod of perhaps seven common dolphins came into the bay and gave the parents a demonstration of how swimming should be done.

A map of the area is here.