Spin and Skim

Here is Easdale, a short ferry-crossing across the Firth of Lorn, an island that had a long tradition of quarrying, but has now hosted the World Stone Skimming Championships since 1997. Yesterday saw this notice in place

and the crowds gather to watch many competitors take part where once stones were hewn on a large scale.

The entrants had plenty of smaller, ideally-shaped stones from which to choose and then to give them

strong spin and surface skim to take them up to 64 metres across to the back wall. Excerpts of the preparations, and from the event itself, appear on the BBC Website and is a must-see for those who like to witness people taking pastimes and making passions. If I recall correctly the narrow channel from Seil to Easdale is less than the distance achieved by some of the stone-skimmers.

Scottish Islands Explorer - plenty of stories to spin