ron-t kayaking blog

18 September 2012 .............. Falls of Lora

Last night I went for a play at the Falls of Lora - it didn`t go according to plan.

When I was launching, it was obvious that the loch was very high - I paddled round to the wave by the north pier, and was gobsmacked - the wave was enormous, much bigger than I have ever seen before. The tide to the west of the bridge was very high as well - I think it was about the same as about 6 weeks or so ago on the 1st August, when it was also very high. However on that evening, the wave was large, but quite user friendly. This wave certainly wasn`t.

On the 1st August, the high tide height was predicted to be 4.0 metres, the previous low tide height was predicted to be 0.8 metres. The levels were made higher because of a deep low pressure just to the west of Scotland. The tidal range was 3.2 metres.

Last night the predicted high tide height was 4.2 metres, the previous low tide height was predicted to be 0.4 metres, so the tidal range was 3.8 metres - quite a lot bigger. There is a low pressure area to the north of Scotland, which will be having some affect on the heights, but not as much.

The result was, as I said, the wave was enormous, and the other thing about it was the size of the foam pile - the whole of the river right side of the wave had a pile, the green portion of the wave river left of centre was quite narrow, with the rest of the river left half being flatter and very fast.

I did try, but I just couldn`t get onto it at all, there was so much water coming straight at me where you normally can slide on, it was just a no-no.

Maybe if I was half my age and had double the balls I would have tried harder, but even if I had got onto the wave, surfing would have been very difficult. The slighest deviation onto the river right side of the wave, and you would have been instantly sucked right and slammed into the wall.

Eventually I stopped trying, got out of my boat, and stood on the rocks admiring the wave. At that point the speed was beginning to drop off a wee bit, but the wave was not getting any smaller. What did then happen was that the pile on the river right half got bigger - it just got longer and longer, dropping down towards the trough. At its maximum, it was about 1.2 metres, maybe briefly up to 1.5 metres, so well down towards the trough.

I have never seen that size of a foam pile before on this wave. The norm is for a small amount of pile fairly close to the wall - this was in a whole new league.

Very slowly, through high tide, the wave began to shrink, but I still couldn`t get onto it. I eventually got onto it about half an hour after high tide, and had some brief surfing on the river left side, but it was getting a bit flat, and also it was just about dark by then as well, so it didn`t last long.

Normally for big tidal ranges, you can get on and get surfing about half an hour before high tide, so this monster of a wave lasted an hour longer than usual.

So the surfing wasn`t a great success, but it was definitely worth being there to see the wave. No pictures I am afraid, I wasn`t expecting anything like that, so no camera.

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