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Tuesday, 04/Sep/2007
Corryvreckan Whirlpool
This evening I'm in a bit of a foul mood. The reason? A problem I don't think you'll really have when living on Islay: I lost over an hour being stuck in traffic today. Half an hour each in the morning and in the evening. Mostly due to rubbernecking after accidents on the M4. Anyway, I thought I need something powerful to distract me. Something really powerful. It's not on Islay. It's not on Jura either. But right next to Jura. The Corryvreckan Whirlpool. Let's take a look at it:
Same Corryvreckan Whirlpool, another video:
Quite impressive, I think.
For more information about the whirlpool I highly recommend the Corryvreckan Whirlpool in Scotland website. Tons of information and pictures. The Smithsonian has a nice feature about it, In the Eye of the Whirlpool. Getting there can be a bit of an adventure, as this travelogue demonstrates:
- To the Gulf of Corryvreckan: Part I
- To the Gulf of Corryvreckan: Part II: The Isle of Jura
- To the Gulf of Corryvreckan: Part III: The Paps of Jura
- To the Gulf of Corryvreckan: Part IV: The Holy Grail
But I'm not finished yet. No, there's more:
For those looking for more of a challenge (or to calm down after being stuck in annoying traffic jams?), some people even swim through the whirlpool. Yes, you read that right. Swim. I'm not entirely sure when the first attempts were made, one was in 2003 as the Scotsman reports in Sink or swim for whirlpool daredevils. And several swimmers from Islay swam through it just over two weeks ago: 8 swimmers of the Islay Masters Swimming Club conquered the Corryvreckan on the 23rd of August 2007, which at least partly was the inspiration for this entry.
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