Tim's Shiant Isles Diary 2002 Tim's Shiant Isles Diary 2002 Friday 28 June
I left home with Tom at 05:10 in a taxi for Heathrow. We met Rupert in the queue to check in, and flew in an almost empty aircraft to Glasgow. There we met Roger, who arrived in the nick of time from Bristol to catch the flight to Stornoway. Rupert and Tom were amazed to see that our aircraft was propeller-driven - it was the first time either of them remembers flying in anything other than a jet. As we approached Stornoway, I had a good view of the Shiants about 5 miles away to port.
John met us at Stornoway airport with his brother-in-law Malcolm's car. He didn't have room for all of us so Rupert and I took a taxi, giving us the opportunity of hearing at first hand from our driver about the problems of Sunday closing in the Western Isles! We met up with Martin and Casey on the quay, and started to make a pile of everything at the King's Steps. The Co-op had packed the food, as I'd asked, in boxes inside black polythene sacks, so I just hoped it was all there. After some last minute shopping for even more black sacks, we loaded the RIB, Footloose, and set off at 12:35 at high speed (39 knots on my GPS) down the coast of Lewis. We began to see masses of razorbills, puffins, and gannets. Despite Willie MacRae's promise of a dry voyage, those of us at the back took several salty splashes as we left the shelter of Lewis and Harris to make across to the Shiants, where we arrived at 13:15. Somehow, being whisked so quickly to the islands, together with the speed of the flight from London, makes them feel less remote than they did in 1958, when we had a 20-hour train journey and a six-hour sea voyage. The feeling of isolation when the boat left, however, was still the same.
Pat Foster and the Czech archaeologists were ready for us, but it took nearly an hour to transfer all our kit and people ashore and to put them and their stuff on board Footloose in the tender. Pat seemed pleased to be speaking English again after a month presumably speaking only Czech. The girl who broke her arm (Radana?) had gone back to the islands after 2 days in Stornoway and had stayed to the end. She had been coming off Rough Island in very wet weather and had a nasty fall. Luckily a yacht with a doctor on board had arrived fairly soon afterwards, and he had been able to stitch her wound (without anaesthetic) and splint the bone before arranging for the helicopter to take her off. From their entries in the log book, it seemed that the weather had restricted the amount of work they had been able to achieve. They had been excavating a site in h-Annaid, and Pat told us they were 70% certain that they had identified an early Christian hermitage. They had also cleaned off the cobbled floor of the lobster fisherman's bothy (HI5) and left it exposed for the tourists to view! I think they had also done some further excavation in the area of the blackhouse HI15.
After carrying all the kit up to the house, we had lunch outside the house. Then I stowed the food while the others put up their tents. Stowing the food was easier said then done, as the store cupboard was almost filled with food left by previous visitors. Any shipwrecked mariner stumbling on the house would be able to survive for several weeks on a diet of baked beans and Ambrosia creamed rice! The house is better furnished than when we were last here, with a table, chairs, and cooker in the right-hand room, and four beds for the shepherds in the left. We decided not to use the shepherds' bedroom - our tents seemed more salubrious.
In the afternoon, Tom, Rupert, and I went south on House Island, exploring the green valley, then swinging north to go to the summit, then back down to the house through the crags. John and Roger went straight up Rough Island and over to the spur running down to Labrador. Roger has his foot in a polythene bag to protect an ulcer caused by wearing an over tight ski-boot a couple of months earlier, but he seems to be going well at this stage. Martin and Casey climbed round the rocks along the shore to the puffin colonies in the screes of Rough Island.
I cooked supper with Tom and Rupert. Mushroom soup, chicken curry with rice, and chocolate mousse seemed to go down well, and the others helped it down with Scotch, lager, and port.
The islands are much as I remember them, but perhaps even more beautiful and spectacular. There don't seem to be quite as many puffins as last time.
Saturday 29 June
After a splendid breakfast which John cooked, Rupert, Tom, and I set out up the steep slope above the shingle beach onto Garbh Eilean (Rough Island). It's a tougher climb than I remember from 44 years ago, and the boys were a bit worried about getting down again. However, their fears proved groundless. Over the top, we were buzzed by Great Skuas who were defending their nests (none of which we saw). There were no Great Skuas breeding here in 1958. I can't believe we used to get to the met station on top of Garbh Eilean in 20 minutes - it took us nearly an hour, admittedly admiring the view and the birds, and taking photographs.
After a brief rest at the summit, we set off down the grassy spur towards Arighean am Bhaigh (Labrador). After going down about 150 feet, I suddenly spotted some puffins very close to me on the edge of the cliffs to the right. They were quite unperturbed by our presence, and we were able to take lots of photographs from very close to. Looking further over, we could see that we were on the edge of a huge mixed colony of puffins and razorbills. The sky wasn't black with birds as I remember from 1958, but there was a constant stream past us, mostly of puffins, as they came to check us out.
The thought of struggling back along the rocks at the base of the screes deterred us from descending further, and so we climbed up again and returned across the bleak moorland on top of Garbh Eilean. We found the gully and made our descent, which, while exciting, was not difficult. We arrived back at the house at about 14:30.
After a sandwich lunch in the house, we set out again on House Island. By this time, the weather had turned showery, so we were wearing full waterproofs. We climbed up to the blackhouse which the archaeologists have been excavating, then went on to the south end of the island, disturbing the large colony of Greater Black-Backed Gulls on the way. In the bays to the east we saw fulmars, kittiwakes, razorbills, guillemots, shags, and seals. We returned by the westerly ridge, spotting a solitary Great Skua which seemed to be on a hunting expedition.
When we got back to the house, we found a party of seven visitors who had come ashore from the MV Cuma, a fishing boat converted for island cruises. They set off for a walk, leaving one of their number on the beach setting up a ham radio transmitter. This rather interfered with our constitutional visits to the intertidal zone, for which the most private and sheltered spot had up until then been the south end of the shingle beach. (Until the next day, when the wind swung a bit more to the north, leading to a blast of wind and rain when you took your trousers down which Rupert christened 'God's bidet'!)
John and Roger cooked a splendid supper of roast lamb, potatoes and cabbage, with apple pie for pud. Forecast for tomorrow is SE force 5-6 occasionally 7!
Sunday 30 June
I managed to get soaked by fine driving rain between my tent and the house when I got up, but it stopped later. I was first to rise, unlike yesterday, when I was the last. I made a cup of tea and lit the fire, which made the kitchen much more cosy. After breakfast, at about 11:00, the boys and I went for a walk for an hour round the north end of House Island. It was blowing hard from the southwest, and the rain increased steadily, so we got rather wet. We came back to the house to find everyone else sitting in front of the fire. We sat down and listened to the World Cup Final on Radio 5. Tom made toasted cheese sandwiches for everyone. It was so miserable outside that everyone stayed put.
At about 14:30 the boys and I went out and scrambled across the rocks to see the puffins on the screes on the southeast coast of Garbh Eilean. It was pouring with rain and the rocks were very slippery, but we managed very slowly to get to the first large colony, about 250 metres from the shingle beach, where Tom took lots of photographs. We returned after just over an hour - soaked to the skin!
Martin and Casey cooked an excellent pasta bake for supper , and philosophical discussions went on well into the night over a glass or two of good malt. We all seem to get on as well as we did 44 years ago, and the three 'boys' (aged 31, 28, and 22!) fit in very well.
Monday 1 July
I'd set the alarm for 07:10, but slept through it, so didn't get to the kitchen until 08:00 to cook breakfast. I made scrambled eggs with the remaining 14 eggs.
We started packing up the food and taking down the tents. Tom, returning from a visit from the intertidal zone, reported that a cruise ship had dropped anchor in the bay. Soon the island was crawling with about 40 tourists from the Hebridean Princess, who watched as we ferried everything down to the beach. We persuaded the youngest and prettiest female tourist to take the official expedition photograph of us all. The tourists were still there when Footloose arrived with the Henderson family, who found the Shiants not quite the isolated paradise they had expected. The Hendersons were dressed in shorts, and the four young children looked rather cold after a drenching in the overfalls of Mianish.
We ferried everything aboard Footloose, and Willie MacRae took us on a tour of the islands before we returned to Stornoway. We nosed into the sea caves on Mary Island and Labrador, and got under the overhang of the great cliff of Garbh Eilean to see the guillemot roosts in close-up. We then took our turn for a drenching at Mianish before setting course to Stornoway outside Mary Island.
Willie weaved the RIB through huge rafts of puffins, razorbills, and gannets on the way back, and took us on a detour into a winding sea loch on Lewis. By this time it was raining hard, and we felt we were being shot-blasted as we zipped through it at 40 knots. It was almost a relief to arrive in Stornoway, although I for one was sad that the adventure was over.
After unloading, Rupert, Tom, Roger, and I had lunch in the Stornoway Art Gallery, where hot toddies helped to make us feel warm again. I had a shower (after a long wait for the only public shower), and joined the others in the Caley Bar before getting a taxi to the airport. Martin and Casey were staying in Lewis for another night, but the rest of us (including Morag and Esther) all sat together on the aircraft to Glasgow, and Roger - in a window seat- took some photos of the Shiants with Tom's camera. Rupert, Tom, and I were the only ones travelling on to London with BMI. Angie met us at Heathrow and we were home, exhausted, by 22:00.
The speed of the journey made the whole thing seem like a dream the next day, but it was a terrific trip, and I'm very pleased we went back.