A scatter of wild, empty islands off Argyll, with a fierce tidal gulf at one end and an ancient monastery at the other, reached only by boat
These are islands you look at more often than you land on. Sixty-five square kilometres of empty ground off the Argyll coast — Scarba, little Lunga, and the low chain of the Garvellachs — untouched by roads or shops and awkward to reach at all. Getting there means a boat and settled weather, so most people meet the place from the deck of one.
Between Scarba and Jura runs the Gulf of Corryvreckan, one of the strongest tidal races in Britain, and the water there deserves real respect and local knowledge. On the islands themselves, Cruach Scarba rises steeply for anyone who does step ashore, and out on the Garvellachs the old monastic remains at Eileach-an-Naoimh have kept their beehive cells for well over a thousand years.
This is remote, exposed ground with no facilities at all. Go with a skipper who knows the tides, watch the forecast closely, and treat a landing as a bonus rather than a plan.
