On a sunny Tuesday morning, I headed out with my dad in our two sea kayaks on an adventure to get to Happy Valley Beach, on the South West of Tiree. We were setting off with a goal in our sights- to reach the beach at low tide, when the deep rockpools which we'd discovered the previous year would be exposed.

The kayak journey to this beach is no easy feat as we had learnt in the past when a sudden turn in the weather had made the seas quite rough. This time round though our voyage was made easy thanks to the calm winds. The only brief episode of peril was when I was attacked by a small flock of screeching arctic terns who made it very clear that they were not happy to share the water with me. They normally get very defensive over their nests but this attack was completely unprovoked as we were out on the open sea! I must have looked like a crazy woman crying, and jabbing my paddle in the air in an attempt to scare them off- my dad just paddled on next to me laughing - the birds were completely uninterested in him. Obviously I must look like quite the threat to seabirds.

After about an hour of paddling, we made it round the headland, and scrambled onto the sand beach. With our kayaks parked up snugly on the sand, we spent some time exploring the deep rockpools and swimming through the channels between them. It was like having your own outdoor pool, except this one was strewn with rocks and sea creatures- we saw crabs, tiny fish, limpets and sea urchins.