Between the islands of Scarba and Jura off the west coast of Scotland, ocean currents collide violently. Together they form the third-largest whirlpool in the world. And our boat sails right into the middle of it.
It’s a place sailors avoided and feared for centuries. The British Navy marked this strait as impassable for generations: the Gulf of Corryvreckan, between the islands of Jura to the south and Scarba to the north.
And yet today, people deliberately sail right into it. Because the Corryvreckan whirlpool has become a visitor attraction – on safe boats, of course. One such boat is the “Venture-West”, which sets sail from Crinan.
At first, the sea is calm, sheltered by the bay around Crinan. The weather is good, and the sea stays calm even once you’re beyond the bay. Even so, there’s a brief moment of alarm as the skipper appears to be heading straight for a rock, before slipping through a narrow passage between the two islets of Eilean Cille and Garbh Rèisa.
As a reward for the fright, seals pose here, and at several other points along the tour, on the rocks.
Then the boat reaches the coast of Jura. Still calm – but at the northern tip, the still sea begins to churn up seemingly out of nowhere. Waves crash against the coast, even though there’s hardly any wind. The boat has reached the Corryvreckan.
Now the wild ride begins – once around the whirlpool – and everyone on board gets a sense of why ordinary sailors avoid this strait. Suddenly, a wall of water looms up behind you, as if you were standing in a valley with a mountain rising up right at your back.
The strange waves break violently against sharp rocks that appear right in the middle of the sea; everything boils, bubbles and hisses.
In fact, the islanders can hear the Corryvreckan for miles around when it’s really running strong. Its currents can reach speeds of around 14 kilometres per hour.
Whirlpools aren’t always visible in the Corryvreckan, though. How strong the maelstrom gets here depends on the wind and even the position of the moon. Either way, you’ll definitely feel and see something.
Then, seemingly out of nowhere, a kind of standing wave appears, seeming to break endlessly. The boat has reached “The Great Race”. It’s created when the incoming tide from the east pushes against the wind and against the tide coming from the west. Even without the whirlpool, this phenomenon leaves a lasting impression.
Eventually, having circled the Corryvreckan once, the waters calm down, and the skipper sets course along the east coast of Scarba. The island is known as a nesting site for sea eagles. With a bit of luck, they’ll pose for the boat’s passengers.
Sights like this captivate onlookers so completely that they barely notice they’re sailing straight into the next hazard. Because above Scarba, another fierce current forms – jokingly known as “the little Corryvreckan”.
Its force, though, is of course nowhere near comparable. At last, the Venture-West sets course back to the harbour at Crinan, passing several lovely houses along the coast of Craignish.
Right at the end, the boat passes the mouth of the Crinan Canal.
After a good two and a half hours at sea, the Venture-West reaches its mooring once again. The Corryvreckan adventure is over, but the images and the feeling of the world’s third-largest maelstrom will stay in your memory.
Good to know: How the Corryvreckan whirlpool forms, and a legend
The name Corryvreckan is – as so often – simply the phonetic English rendering of a Gaelic word: “Coire Bhreacain” means “speckled cauldron” or “speckled hollow”.
So what actually creates the maelstrom between the islands of Scarba and Jura? For one thing, of course, the narrowness of the strait. How fast the water can move through such a narrow gap is shown by the Sound of Islay (pronounced roughly “kööl eela”), the strait between Islay and Jura. Yet no whirlpools form there.
The whirlpool in the Corryvreckan is created by unusual rock formations on the seabed of the strait. In December 2012, researchers uncovered the mystery by producing a precise sonar image. The first surprise: the rock pinnacle often blamed for the effect doesn’t actually exist. Instead, the current runs through a channel up to 200 metres deep, which then meets a cliff jutting out into the sea from Scarba.
Naturally, a place like this has its own legend too. The Norwegian prince Breakan is said to have asked for the hand of a princess who came from Jura. Her father agreed, on condition that Breakan anchor his boat in the Corryvreckan – for three days and nights. With the boats of the time, this was a brutal test. The prince prepared by having three ropes woven: one of hemp, one of wool, and one from the hair of Norwegian maidens.
Breakan cast out the first rope with the anchor. It held for a day and a night, then snapped. He cast out the wool rope. This one too held for a day and a night. Then he cast out the rope of maiden’s hair. At the first strong gust of wind, it snapped – the prince was dragged under by the maelstrom and drowned.
When the news reached Norway, one of the women whose hair had been woven into the rope blamed herself. She, it seems, had not been quite as much of a maiden as she’d claimed.
Another story, and probably a true one: the writer George Orwell, who finished his dystopian novel 1984 on Jura, once sailed into the Corryvreckan in a small boat and very nearly killed himself, his son, his niece and his nephew in the process. Orwell chose the wrong time to cross the strait and capsized. The family, however, managed to swim to shore.
The Corryvreckan, incidentally, has also since lent its name to an Ardbeg whisky.
Getting there:
By boat only, of course. Operators depart from Crinan with Venture West, from Oban with Seafari, and from Jura with Jura Boat Tours.
