The Gulf of Corryvreckan (from the Gaelic Coire Bhreacain meaning "cauldron of the speckled seas" or "cauldron of the plaid"), also called the Strait of Corryvreckan, is a narrow strait

Strait

A strait or straits is a narrow, typically navigable channel of water that connects two larger, navigable bodies of water. It most commonly refers to a channel of water that lies between two land masses, but it may also refer to a navigable channel through a body of water that is otherwise not...

 between the islands of Jura

Jura, Scotland

Jura is an island in the Inner Hebrides of Scotland, situated adjacent and to the north-east of Islay. Part of the island is designated as a National Scenic Area. Until the twentieth century Jura was dominated - and most of it was eventually owned - by the Campbell clan of Inveraray Castle on Loch...

 and Scarba

Scarba

Scarba is a small island, in Argyll and Bute, Scotland, just north of the much larger island of Jura. The island is owned by Richard Hill, 7th Baron Sandys and has not been permanently inhabited since the 1960s. It is now covered in heather and used for grazing animals...

, in Argyll and Bute

Argyll and Bute

Argyll and Bute is both one of 32 unitary council areas; and a Lieutenancy area in Scotland. The administrative centre for the council area is located in Lochgilphead.Argyll and Bute covers the second largest administrative area of any Scottish council...

, off the west coast of Scotland

Scotland

Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...

.

It is possible for tourists to visit the site by way of boats trips from local harbours.

Topography

Strong Atlantic

Atlantic Ocean

The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's oceanic divisions. With a total area of about , it covers approximately 20% of the Earth's surface and about 26% of its water surface area...

 currents

Ocean current

An ocean current is a continuous, directed movement of ocean water generated by the forces acting upon this mean flow, such as breaking waves, wind, Coriolis effect, cabbeling, temperature and salinity differences and tides caused by the gravitational pull of the Moon and the Sun...

 and unusual underwater topography

Topography

Topography is the study of Earth's surface shape and features or those ofplanets, moons, and asteroids...

 conspire to produce a particularly intense tidal race

Tidal race

Tidal race is a natural occurrence whereby a fast moving tide passes through a constriction resulting in the formation of waves, eddies and hazardous currents...

 in the Corryvreckan channel. As the flood tide

Tide

Tides are the rise and fall of sea levels caused by the combined effects of the gravitational forces exerted by the moon and the sun and the rotation of the Earth....

 enters the narrow area between the two islands it speeds up to 8.5 knots (≈16 km/h,≈10 mph), and also meets a variety of seabed features including a deep hole and a rising pinnacle. These features combine to create whirlpool

Whirlpool

A whirlpool is a swirling body of water usually produced by ocean tides. The vast majority of whirlpools are not very powerful. More powerful ones are more properly termed maelstroms. Vortex is the proper term for any whirlpool that has a downdraft...

s, standing wave

Standing wave

In physics, a standing wave – also known as a stationary wave – is a wave that remains in a constant position.This phenomenon can occur because the medium is moving in the opposite direction to the wave, or it can arise in a stationary medium as a result of interference between two waves traveling...

s and a variety of other surface effects.

The Corryvreckan is the third largest whirlpool in the world, and is on the northern side of the gulf, surrounding a pyramid-shaped basalt

Basalt

Basalt is a common extrusive volcanic rock. It is usually grey to black and fine-grained due to rapid cooling of lava at the surface of a planet. It may be porphyritic containing larger crystals in a fine matrix, or vesicular, or frothy scoria. Unweathered basalt is black or grey...

 pinnacle that rises from depths of 70 m to 29 m at its rounded top. Flood tides and inflow from the Firth of Lorne

Firth of Lorne

The Firth of Lorn is a body of water on Scotland's west coast, in Argyll and Bute. It lies between the Isle of Mull to the northwest and the Isles of Kerrera, Seil and Luing along with parts of the Scottish mainland southwest of Oban on the southeast side...

 to the west can drive the waters of Corryvreckan to waves of over 30 feet (9 m), and the roar of the resulting maelstrom

Maelstrom

A maelstrom is a very powerful whirlpool; a large, swirling body of water. A free vortex, it has considerable downdraft. The power of tidal whirlpools tends to be exaggerated by laymen. There are virtually no stories of large ships ever being sucked into a maelstrom, although smaller craft are in...

 can be heard ten miles (16 km) away.

Although not, as is sometimes believed, formally classified by the Admiralty

Admiralty

The Admiralty was formerly the authority in the Kingdom of England, and later in the United Kingdom, responsible for the command of the Royal Navy...

 as unnavigable (the Admiralty's West Coast of Scotland Pilot guide to inshore waters calls it "very violent and dangerous" and says "no vessel should then attempt this passage without local knowledge"), the nearby 'Grey Dogs', or 'Little Corryvreckan', are classified as such. Experienced scuba divers

Scuba diving

Scuba diving is a form of underwater diving in which a diver uses a scuba set to breathe underwater....

 explore the waters, described as "potentially the most dangerous dive in [Britain]".

Mythology

In Scottish mythology

Scottish mythology

Scottish mythology may refer to any of the mythologies of Scotland.Myths have emerged for various purposes throughout the history of Scotland, sometimes being elaborated upon by successive generations, and at other times being completely rejected and replaced by other explanatory narratives.-...

 the hag

Hag

A hag is a wizened old woman, or a kind of fairy or goddess having the appearance of such a woman, often found in folklore and children's tales such as Hansel and Gretel. Hags are often seen as malevolent, but may also be one of the chosen forms of shapeshifting deities, such as the Morrígan or...

 goddess

Goddess

A goddess is a female deity. In some cultures goddesses are associated with Earth, motherhood, love, and the household. In other cultures, goddesses also rule over war, death, and destruction as well as healing....

 of winter, Cailleach Bheur

Cailleach

In Irish and Scottish mythology, the , also known as the Cailleach Bheur, is a divine hag, a creatrix, and possibly an ancestral deity or deified ancestor...

, uses the gulf to wash her great plaid

Plaid (pattern)

For other meanings, see plaid.A plaid is a pattern consisting of crossed horizontal and vertical bands in two or more colors in woven cloth.Common examples of plaid patterns include:*Tartan, the pattern most commonly associated with plaid....

, and this ushers in the turn of the seasons from autumn to winter. As winter approaches, she uses the gulf as her washtub, and it is said the roar of the coming tempest can be heard from as far away as twenty miles, lasting for a period of three days. When she is finished with the washing, the cloth is pure white, and becomes the blanket of snow that covers the land. Another legend surrounds Norse king Breacan. In various stories, Breacan moored his boat near the whirlpool to impress a local princess, or fled his father across the gulf. In both stories Breacan was swept into the whirlpool, and his body dragged ashore later by his dog. Breacan may be named after the whirlpool, or its current name may be a Gaelic pun

Pun

The pun, also called paronomasia, is a form of word play which suggests two or more meanings, by exploiting multiple meanings of words, or of similar-sounding words, for an intended humorous or rhetorical effect. These ambiguities can arise from the intentional use and abuse of homophonic,...

 on his name.

History

Writing in the 7th century Adamnan called Corryvreckan "Charybdis

Charybdis

Charybdis or Kharybdis was a sea monster, later rationalised as a whirlpool and considered a shipping hazard in the Strait of Messina.-The mythological background:...

 Brecani".

In 1549, Dean Monro

Donald Monro (Dean)

Donald Monro was a Scottish clergyman, who wrote an early and historically valuable description of the Hebrides and other Scottish islands and enjoyed the honorific title of “Dean of the Isles”.-Origins:...

 wrote of "Skarbay" that between it and "Duray": "ther runnes ane streame, above the power of all sailing and rowing, with infinit dangers, callit Corybrekan. This stream is aught myle lang, quhilk may not be hantit bot be certain tyds."

In 1820 the world's first passenger paddleship the PS Comet

PS Comet

The paddle steamer PS Comet was built for Henry Bell, hotel and baths owner in Helensburgh, and began a passenger service in 1812 on the River Clyde between Glasgow and Greenock, the first commercially successful steamboat service in Europe.-History:...

 was wrecked nearby to Craignesh Point as a result of encountering the strong currents.

Writer George Orwell

George Orwell

Eric Arthur Blair , better known by his pen name George Orwell, was an English author and journalist...

 and his son (who lived at Barnhill

Barnhill, Jura

Barnhill is a solitary farmhouse, remotely situated at grid reference in the north of the island of Jura in the Scottish Hebrides. It stands on the site of a larger settlement known in Gaelic since the fifteenth century as Knockintavil, the English name Barnhill having only been in use since the...

 in northern Jura) were briefly shipwrecked on the skerry

Skerry

A skerry is a small rocky island, usually defined to be too small for habitation. It may simply be a rocky reef. A skerry can also be called a low sea stack....

 of Eilean Mor (south of the whirlpool) when boating in the gulf, and Orwell's one-legged brother-in-law Bill Dunn was the first person to swim the gulf.

Natural history

Minke whale

Minke Whale

Minke whale , or lesser rorqual, is a name given to two species of marine mammal belonging to a clade within the suborder of baleen whales. The minke whale was given its official designation by Lacepède in 1804, who described a dwarf form of Balænoptera acuto-rostrata...

s and porpoise

Porpoise

Porpoises are small cetaceans of the family Phocoenidae; they are related to whales and dolphins. They are distinct from dolphins, although the word "porpoise" has been used to refer to any small dolphin, especially by sailors and fishermen...

s swim in the fast-moving waters and only the most resilient plants and coral

Coral

Corals are marine animals in class Anthozoa of phylum Cnidaria typically living in compact colonies of many identical individual "polyps". The group includes the important reef builders that inhabit tropical oceans and secrete calcium carbonate to form a hard skeleton.A coral "head" is a colony of...

s thrive on the seabed

Seabed

The seabed is the bottom of the ocean.- Ocean structure :Most of the oceans have a common structure, created by common physical phenomena, mainly from tectonic movement, and sediment from various sources...

. Soft corals such as Alcyonium digitatum

Alcyonacea

The Alcyonacea, or the soft corals are an order of corals which do not produce calcium carbonate skeletons. Soft corals contain minute, spiny skeletal elements called sclerites. Aside from their scientific utility in species identification, sclerites give these corals some degree of support and...

can be found in hollows and other sheltered locations. The central pinnacle supports dense mats of the hydroids Tubularia indivisa

Tubularia

Tubularia is a genus of hydroids that appear to be furry pink tufts or balls at the end of long strings, thus causing them to be sometimes be called "pink-mouthed" or "pink-hearted" hydroids. T. larynx is described as:The stems are tubular, with a yellowish coloured tegument and are branched at the...

and Sertularia cupressina and the bryozoa

Bryozoa

The Bryozoa, also known as Ectoprocta or commonly as moss animals, are a phylum of aquatic invertebrate animals. Typically about long, they are filter feeders that sieve food particles out of the water using a retractable lophophore, a "crown" of tentacles lined with cilia...

n Securiflustra securifrons. The most exposed areas are covered by the barnacles Balanus crenatus

Balanus

Balanus is a genus of barnacles in the family Balanidae of the subphylum Crustacea, containing the following species:*Balanus albicostatus*Balanus amaryllis Darwin*Balanus amphitrite Darwin, 1854*Balanus aquila Pilsbry, 1907...

 and B. hameri.

The area is currently being considered for Special Area of Conservation

Special Area of Conservation

A Special Area of Conservation is defined in the European Union's Habitats Directive , also known as the Directive on the Conservation of Natural Habitats and of Wild Fauna and Flora...

 status.

Modern cultural references

Part of Powell's and Pressburger's

Powell and Pressburger

The British film-making partnership of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, also known as The Archers, made a series of influential films in the 1940s and 1950s. In 1981 they were recognized for their contributions to British cinema with the BAFTA Academy Fellowship Award, the most prestigious...

 1944 film I Know Where I'm Going!

I Know Where I'm Going!

I Know Where I'm Going! is a 1945 romance film by the British-based film-makers Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger. It stars Wendy Hiller and Roger Livesey, and features Pamela Brown, Finlay Currie and Petula Clark in her fourth film appearance....

was set at Corryvreckan. They filmed in Corryvreckan and the nearby (but less fierce) waters at Bealach a’ Choin Ghlais. The footage obtained there was then used in back projections with the actors in a replica boat rocked on gimbals while buckets of water were thrown at them. Model shots of the whirlpool were made to give a medium view of the boat being drawn in to Corryvreckan.

Ardbeg Distillery

Ardbeg

Ardbeg Distillery is a Scotch whisky distillery on the south coast of the isle of Islay, Argyll and Bute, Scotland, in the Inner Hebrides group of islands. The distillery claims to produce the peatiest Islay whisky and uses malted barley sourced from the maltings in Port Ellen. It is one of the...

 produced a limited edition "Ardbeg Corryvreckan Scotch whisky" in 2008. In the summer of 1947, George Orwell

George Orwell

Eric Arthur Blair , better known by his pen name George Orwell, was an English author and journalist...

 nearly drowned in the Corryvreckan whirlpool while in Scotland writing his novel Nineteen Eighty-Four

Nineteen Eighty-Four

Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell is a dystopian novel about Oceania, a society ruled by the oligarchical dictatorship of the Party...

. The McCalmans

The McCalmans

The McCalmans were a folk song trio from Scotland. Formed in 1964, they recorded and toured without interruption up until they disbanded in December 2010....

have recorded a song called Corryvreckan Calling.

External links

• Website covering all aspects of the Corryvreckan by an experienced Charter boat skipper based nearby