Geograph - photograph every grid square

Sgeir Greadach

A very isolated rocky reef - in fact so isolated it's not covered by 1:50000 or 1:25000 Ordnance Survey maps even as an inset.

I didn't notice until viewing the photos at home that there's the foundations for four legs of a beacon, close to the right-hand edge of the picture. Research suggests that the red-painted beacon was removed in 2005 when its warning function was transferred to the Eugenie Rock buoy, about 1900m to the south-east. Eugenie Rock itself lies about halfway between, and is lower than the minimum tide level.

Spelling note: the Imray chart I used spells this Sgeir Graidach; I believe this is a mis-spelling of Greadach, from the noun greadadh meaning a drubbing or lustily whipping (Maclennan's Gaelic Dictionary). It certainly seems appropriate, give the nature of the sea over this reef!