The clean air of the island supports 500 varieties of lichens to testify to its purity.
Tides and times
Isle of Man Coastguard, tel: 01624 661664
The sea makes such a major contribution to Raad ny Foillan that it is to your advantage to learn a little about its ways. Things that seem obvious and familiar to those fortunate enough to live near the sea may be amusing, but could soon become alarming to those who make the odd visit to the sea and are not familiar with its various moods.
The tide flows up the Irish Sea in a northerly direction, bending round the Point of Ayre to take an easterly direction along the Galloway coast. The ebb flows at 2½ knots from Galloway south back down the Irish Sea.
The tidal flow reaches Liverpool at roughly the same time as the Isle of Man, the tidal differences in time and height on Liverpool being shown in the table on the folowing page.
The times and heights of the tides for Standard Port – Liverpool can be found easily in the national daily newspapers or by studying one of the nautical almanacs.
Ballaugh Beach and Jurby Head
The tidal stream changes direction every six hours. The ebb usually runs longer than six hours, while the flood runs slightly less than six hours, low tide being 6hr 10mins after high tide. This results in advancing the time of high water and low water by ¾hr every 24 hours.
At Point of Ayre: beyond the foghorn the tide race is in full ebb
The strength of the tidal stream varies daily because of the position of the moon. The tide height and range is greatest at spring tides. Spring tides occur two days after new and full moons; neap tides fortnightly halfway between spring tides, two days after the first and last quarters of the moon. Spring tide height at Liverpool (MHWS 9.3m) is considered high at 9 metres but twice a year makes 10 metres. This is a result of the influence of the sun and the moon, and occurs at the vernal equinox (21 March) and the autumnal equinox (21 September). The tide races at The Sound and Point of Ayre run at 3–3.5 knots.
Another feature of interest to walkers on Raad ny Foillan is the influence the wind has on the height of the waves. I had heard of freak waves arriving from nowhere, but had never fully appreciated the extra wave height generated even by a modest breeze. The following chart will help you gauge the height of the waves on the sea and the extra amount of water they may throw at you above the normal high tide. I cannot resist the fascination of waves dashing over the rocks and exploding against the cliffs, a real bonus to be enjoyed in bad weather – from a safe distance, of course.
Maps and compasses
The maps in this guide are sufficient to enable you to walk Raad ny Foillan, but you will need to step off the route from time to time. A map of the island will help you to obtain the maximum enjoyment, replenish your supplies and be sure of your nearest point of help in an emergency. Along with the map you may need to take a compass (and know how to use it).
The Isle of Man Outdoor Leisure Maps North and South (3rd digital edition) show Raad ny Foillan and the shorter footpaths, the Millennium Way, Bayr ny Skeddan and the the Heritage Trail (10½ miles from Douglas to Peel along the route of the old railway), at a scale of 1:25,000. They are wonderful maps for detail that you can enjoy in your armchair afterwards. Almost every cove and headland is named, every field drawn and places of historical interest identified. The contour lines, imaginary lines passing through all places of equal height, are at 100ft intervals. For copies email [email protected] or write to Cartographic Section, DLGE, Murray House, Mount Havelock, Douglas, Isle of Man IM1 2SF.
By roughly orientating the map you will be able to identify the mountains and surrounding countryside. The top of the map is north. Place your compass on one of the vertical grid lines on your map and rotate the map until the grid line is parallel with the compass needle.
This method is approximate and is not good enough if you are enveloped suddenly by a thick mist. In this case:
Place your compass on the map with the rotating capsule turned so that the north arrow on the dial is in its correct position at 0 (or 360 degrees), with the whole compass pointing north to the top of the map. The grid lines will help you to do this.
Slowly rotate the map keeping the compass firmly in place, still pointing to the top of the map (north), until the compass needle swings and points to the magnetic north which is 3 deg. 10 mins. west of true north (2003). Your map is now set and you should be able to follow the desired direction.
The Ordnance Survey map of the Isle of Man – Landranger 1:50,000 sheet No.95 – is a revised issue 2016, but the marking of the three long-distance footpaths lacks detail.
The miners’ packhorse bridge over the infant Sulby river
Geology
If you have no interest in geology when you begin Raad ny Foillan you are sure to have your interest aroused in the first few miles. If you have a general basic knowledge, you will become excited at the strata on view. If you are a geologist you will be continually left behind and will have to restrain yourself from loading yourself and your companions with samples! As you progress from Douglas clockwise round the island you will be introduced to rocks from the very oldest to the most recent at the Point of Ayre, then as you move down the east coast you will be able to recognise them again as old friends.
Contorted strata in an isolated bay below the Marine Drive at The Whing
The Isle of Man has few crags inland, but the stone used in the old local walls and buildings, and the vegetation cover, will give you clues to the nature of the underlying rocks. At the coast, however, the rock strata is exposed, washed and ready for inspection.
The Isle of Man is part of the Irish Sea horst. In layman’s terms a horst is a ridge pushed up between two great faults (cracks in the earth). In Cambro-Ordovician times, layers of muds and silts known as the Manx or Barrule slates were deposited. Movements in the earth’s crust caused subsidence, which was followed by marine deposition, when the carboniferous limestones were deposited. Next was a period of uplift and folding. The movement produced the Irish Sea horst, the plateau-like area. This horst extends from Ireland to the English Lake District, the Isle of Man being the central part protruding above the waters of the Irish Sea. The folded Barrule slates can be seen from the Marine Drive, where they give rise to magnificent coastal scenery. In the Tertiary period dykes (vertical cracks filled from below with molten basalt) occurred in profusion, cutting through the strata and resulting in sudden changes of colour and texture.
During the Ice Ages glaciers covered the island. As they moved south they carried with them large boulders from Scotland, which were subsequently deposited as erratics. Many of these have been used in buildings. As the glaciers crossed the sea they scooped up and carried marine deposits from the sea bed. As the ice melted, sands, gravels and boulder
