East of Sanna

The weather forecast yesterday morning was for grey skies, but by the time we reached Sanna the clouds were already clearing.  We crossed the Sanna burn and made for the fort at Rubha an Duin Bhain, the point of the white fortress.  Not much of the defences remain, but we've always imagined it as a Viking structure, with the norsemen's longships drawn up on the nearby white sand beach.

The air was so clear that we could see every house of Port Mor on Muck, the pier, the wind turbines, and a yacht in the bay.  Behind Muck is Rum which, in this telephoto shot, seems to loom over it.

A little further to the east is Plocaig, a township abandoned to the sheep.  The land around the township is poor, and we've always wondered how the inhabitants scraped a living.  The settlement didn't last long: Bald's map of 1806 shows a field worked here but no houses, the houses are all there on the 1856 OS First Series map, and they were in ruins by the 1930s.

Plocaig's livelihood may have depended on fishing.  The little port, a dark place, is small and rocky, but protected from the open sea by a narrow entrance and this large rock.

By this time the weather was clearing, so that....

....when we reached the lonely beaches just to the east of Plocaig, sands which are covered at high tide, the sun was out.  This picture looks back to the beach at Rubha an Duin Bhain.

Climbing the hill at the back of the bay we looked on to Rubha Carrach, sometimes called the Cat's Face, with the small isles strung out along the horizon: Eigg at the right, Rum centre, Muck to the left and, just visible to the left of Muck, the low profile of Canna.

This last picture shows the view back from the end of Rubha Carrach.  Three settlements are visible: the broken houses of Plocaig, Sanna beyond them and, on the far side of Sanna Bay, Portuairk.  Along the horizon to the right is Coll.