LOG OF THE SHIANTS 2001

Just as a matter of interest, I thought I'd see what information I could
find on the Internet about the Shiants.   Altavista found 128 references!
An awful lot of them are connected with amateur radio - apparently it's a
great thing to set up a radio station on an island (the more remote the
better) and see how many contacts you can make from it.  Another category
was scientific papers - the Shiants have the largest British population of
the Ship Rat _rattus rattus_ (as we all knew!)   There was even a company
advertising day trips to the Shiants from Lewis, so I hope it's not going
to be too much like a theme park.
The point of all this is that, although this trip should require less
organisation than our last one, I think it would be worth getting
permission to go to the islands at this stage, to avoid a clash of dates
with other visitors.   I'd be very happy to research this and write the
necessary letters, unless someone else has already started!   Tim (24 Nov
1999)

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First, thanks to John for getting us together.  I really enjoyed meeting up
with you all.  And thanks to Adrian for the hospitality.  Bookends did
sound a bit final but as Tim points out they are movable.  I am up for a
trip any summer - subject to the inevitable restrictions of some dates. But
I would rather the Shackleton dropped beaujolais than sanotogen! And for
the very keen bird watchers we could take in a trip to Stornaway airport
where a significant proportion of the UK's corncrakes breed and there are
usually Great northan divers offshore.  But as that may take a bit of time
to set up we could also take up Tim's invitation to the RAF club (in case
it's a worry Tim, I do own a tie!)
Perhaps it would be good to get permission to revisit.  I know that there
is a ringing group who go for a couple of weeks each year so we might want
to find some dates when the island is not over-populated.  Realistically,
it might be best to plan for 2001.  Island going is a lot easier than it
used to be but it does take some time setting up. Puffins leave mid August.
Remember they had gone after the first few days in June when we were on the
island.  June or July would be good times.  Train buffs will want to go to
Kyle buyt probably easier to fly to Stornaway and get a boat from there. I
like John's suggestion of something within a week. Makes catering easier.
Fresh food with some tins of cassoulet and rosti for the last days would
get us through. Martin  (26 Nov 1999)
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Just to let you all know that I have at last tracked down someone at
Scottish Natural Heritage at Stornoway who has the address of Adam Nicolson
(the current owner of the Shiants and Nigel's son)!   Unfortunately they
will not give me the address over the phone, so I have written asking for
it.   When I get the reply, I'll write to Adam Nicolson.
I've spoken to several interesting people in Stornoway (some of whom
clearly had English as a second language after the Gaelic), including the
owner of the boat which advertises day trips to the Shiants on the
Internet.  He was the one who suggested I try SNH.   He was also very keen
to take us to the islands, but cooled down a bit when I said we were
planning for 2001! Anyway, he's someone to bear in mind, as one of the
possible routes is to fly to Stornoway and take a boat from there.  It
rather depends how much time (and, dare I say, money) we want to put into
this project. Tim (30 Nov 1999)
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Well, that turned out to be the easiest bit!   I've just had a very
agreeable telephone conversation with Adam Nicholson, who says that he will
be delighted to let us go to the Shiants in 2001. He knew all about the
1958 expedition, from a book that someone has written and from the
visitors' book on the islands - he's sending me copies of the relevant
pages.  He even suggested that we might like to go a little earlier than
late July (I'd suggested 26th to 31st July) both to increase the chances of
seeing plenty of puffins and because the weather tends to be better earlier
in the Summer.   Anyway, he gave us agreement in principle and said we
could sort out the details nearer the time. He told me that he is himself
planning several visits to the Shiants next year as he is writing a book on
the history of the islands.   He also said his father is still alive and
keeping very well. So there we are then - we can all go back into
hibernation for the time being and perhaps start sorting out the details
when we meet in the Autumn. We might think about inviting Adam Nicholson to
have dinner with us then - he sounds a very nice chap. Tim (15 Dec 1999)

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I think it would be very good to ask Adam along to the November 2000 bash.
Incidentally I am still recovering from Mischa's Blue Men missive. Actually
I wrote an email yesterday to my brother-in-law Malcolm Maclean who is a
big noise in the Gaelic culture industry in Lewis asking him for any more
information about those stories. I'll pass on any results I get once they
appear. Best wishes to everyone for Christmas and this blessed millennium.
I'm up to my neck rehearsing CIRCUS CRIMBO - the circus in Blackheath's
Victorian Concert Halls (23 Dec to 9 Jan - tickets still available!)   John
(15 Dec 1999)
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Well, it's really starting to feel it is going to happen.  There's an
unexpected energy coming out of these emails.  Now who is going to look for
sponsorship...who is going to arrange the food... who's doing
transport...who's going to write an article for The Elizabethan?...   Happy
Christmas everybody.  Mischa (16 Dec 1999)
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The Blue Men of the Shiants! Obviously we were all so gobsmacked by
Mischa's sudden introduction of the realms of mythology to our projected
island sojourn that we were unable to comment! Well, in this neck of the
woods, there has been some slight movement. My brother-in-law, Malcolm
Maclean. director of The Gaelic Arts Project (or, as we have it in
Greenwich, trippingly off the tongue: - Proiseact Nan Ealan), sent me a
very interesting little paperback over the Christmas holiday entitled
Seal-Folk and Ocean Paddlers. It's by John M. MacAulay who turns out to be
a Harris man born and bred and originally a fisherman. Published by the
White Horse Press, Cambridge, and 1 Strond, Isle of Harris HS5 3UD, it
covers a wealth of mermaid and merman topics and finishes up with a good
theory that the legends and sitings of the Seal-men and Fin-men (creatures
who  had the useful if fearful gift of being seals during the day and who
could become humans at night) stem from the norse people and (perhaps)
icelanders who used to travel many many miles across the oceans in tiny
skin-covered kayaks. These tiny crafts were so fitted to the operator that
they were virtually worn thus giving the appearance of having some sort of
pointed or fishy tale. And thereby hangs a -  well, um, sorry.
Anyway, in among all this mythic stuff, he covers a paragraph or two about
the Blue Men and the Stream of the Blue Men  -  Struth na Fir Ghorm - which
is the strait between the Shiants and the Isle Of Lewis from Loch Bhrollum
to Kebock Head - a 'seething maelstrom'. He has an account of a Scalpay
fishing boat which 'laid hold' of a uine mara or merman in these waters but
when three other creatures turned up in the sea around their boat they
quickly released the one that they had caught, for fear of impending doom.
And there's another contemporary account of a boat called Hurricane Jack
battling through the strait - 'the Men were now rearing upwards, their
horrible bluey-green faces unveiled by the chill wind which whipped their
frothy white locks and carelessly combined them with the flying spindrift
which absolutrely obliterated everything downwind. Viciously glinting eyes
and dripping jabbering tongues were hurling salty contempt at Hurricane
Jake.' Sounds much like the pubs turning out in Greenwich on Saturday
night.
Anyway I thought this little find might be of interest. Anyone want to
borrow my copy and I'll post it on. But don't feel you have to!
Good millennial wishes to all. John ( 7 January 2000)
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Some infectious thoughts for the new century.  Perhaps we did all catch a
bug when we went to the Islands.  I have been researching the Shiant Island
Virus.  With some help from a colleague who happens to be married to a
public health virologist, I was guided to some informative websites.  Genus
Orbivirus includes the little known group of the Great Island Complex or
11-Kemerovo virus group.  These are viruses that infect sea birds, some
mammals (including rats and people) and are transmitted by ticks and
probably midges, mosquitos and other insects.  Consequences for infected
people range from the trivial to fatal.  The names of the described species
reads like a gazeteer of bird islands  (Foula, Great Saltee, Inner Farne,
Lundy, St Abb's Head, Shiants).  Others are harder to fit into the pattern,
Mill Door Virus, and more puzzling still, closely related, the Sixgun City
Virus. perhaps those of us who spent much of our early adulthood putting
our arms down shearwater and puffin burrows should have been a little more
cautious. But more interesting still, we may have the origin of the myths
of the blue men, at least if you will bring a reductionist biological
solution to the problem.  The type species of the Genus Orbivirus is, of
course as you will know, the blue tongue virus.  I don't think I need to
describe the symptoms.  Not a very post modern solution to Misha's question
though. Should I be recruiting a virologist for our return visit?  Martin
(10 Jan 2000)
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I trust these Shiant viruses do not infect my PC as well! Else  shall
have to travel  there surrounded by my Virus guard.
Adrian (10 Jan 2000)
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Does anyone know, 'The Scottish Islands' by Hamish Hawell-Smith. Canongate
Books. ISBN 0 86241 579 9?  A Christmas present I have enjoyed reading.
Very comprehensive with at least a few pages on each island.  On the
Shiants there is some social history and more on the blue man - has to be
spoken to in gaelic.  He accosts people in the bay between the islands.
Under access it says "excursions by special arrangement by Sea Trek, Uig,
Lewis 01851 672 464 and try 01859 540 225 for boat hire".  Just off to
Australia to do a month's work in an Institute of Genetics. Martin
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I've just received a very nice letter from Adam Nicolson, the text of which
is as follows: "I enclose with apologies for the delay, photocopies of the
pages from the Shiants visitors' book which you and your friends filled in
over forty years ago. It shows above all how remarkably constant the place
is. No one has ever found Storm Petrels on the Galtas or elsewhere. I was
on House Island once with a slightly maniac ornithologist who caught them
at night in a mist net by playing tapes of their calls, but that's not a
measure of anything. All the bird observations chime with everyone else's,
although I have never seen an estimate as high as a million pairs of
puffins. Operation Seafarer is going to count them this year, or at least
try to. The only major change since 1958 is the arrival of the Great Skuas,
which have been breeding there for about 15 years, the numbers rising all
the time. At the moment I think it is about 14 breeding pairs, mainly on
Garbh Eilean.     The two hints that really intrigue me are the 'effective
inhumane method of killing rats' and the alluring sentence: 'A film of the
islands was taken.' Does it still exist? Could I see it?     We will be in
touch again before your visit. You suggest in your letter a week-end in
July. Of course that is fine by me but you should know that the weather is
not as reliable in July as it is in June. By the Met Office statistics
anyway." As you will see, I've copied this message to Adam Nicolson.  I
really can't remember the 'inhumane method of killing rats' - perhaps
Martin could enlighten us, if he's back from Australia.  As for the film,
John gave it to the School Library for posterity, and when he asked after
it last year, it could not be traced. Rather than send you all copies of
the Visitor's Book, I've put it on a web page at
http://www.lodgefamily.freeserve.co.uk/shiants.htm  If there's anything
else, such as old photos, that you would like to put on the web page, just
let me know. There are no links from the outside web to that page, so it is
private at the moment. Tim (15 Feb 2000)
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Wasn't the inhumane method of killing rats a mixture of  flour and cement
powder? Or did I imagine it? Roger (17 Feb 2000)
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My only recollection about rats (apart, that is, from running around the
tents, tripping over guy-ropes, flailing about with a heavy coil of rope)
was the fact that we had some rat pooison dropped by Shackleton Bomber (?)
and Alan had to swim out to sea to rescue the parachute cylinder. Is that
right? John (17 Feb 2000)
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In retrospect, it was madness to attempt the rescue of the parachute
cylinder. The old war bomber sidled low over a hill in a display of
breathtaking, but illegal low rider flying and doubtless intoxicated by its
aerobatics missed the camp, dropping the parachute cylinder some 200 yards
offshore.  I swam through a field of kelp which felt alive enough to be
capable of pulling me down to some undersea maw, or perhaps the embrace of
the Blue Man ("He accosts people in the bay between the islands.") The
water is not warm in The Minch, even in mid-suumer. Did we swim much? But
the true madness of these heroics was that everyone else was off in the
boat on another mission, the rescue of a small freighter (Rattus Rattus)
aground on the reef that stretched North off the second island (?). I had
plunged into the sea without a thought of backup. This occurred to me as I
lay panting on the sand spit with my bright yellow prize cannister. When
everyone else got back from the freighter rescue, we broke open the rat
poison. But what was the story of the wreck on the reef? Alan (5 March 2000)
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Martin (8 Mar 00):  Just back from my work trip to OZ. 105 degrees F in 
Melbourne was a little different from what I found on my return. Saw Sooty 
Shearwaters off New Zealand (where I was also briefly). Their main breeding
colonies are around New Zealand but in August and September you can see 
them quite frequently off the West coast of Britain - I've seen big numbers
in the Minch. I like to think they have more fun on the trip north than 
you get in cattle class with Quantas.

Thank you Alan for the log. The German freighter was the "Dixy Porr".
Later towed to Stornaway where it was repaired. I still have a cutting 
from the Stornaway Gazette (the paper where I made a journalist debut with
a piece on our doings on the islands). I'd completely forgotten about the
swimming. I'm sure I thought it too cold to swim. We are just arranging
school visits to the other island (Bardsey). We have had to provide risk
assessments and all sorts of things to the Health and Safety people. But
despite all these present day concerns (which certainly wouldn't have let a
group of school kids go to an island unsupervised), I would be surprised if
young people were more likely to come to harm on such activities then 
than now.

Tim. Thanks for the website. Adam Nicolson is quite right about storm
petrels. With mist nets and tape lures you can catch them for ringing on
almost any headland or offshore island. We do it on Bardsey. Sometimes we
get birds with rings - from colonies in N. Ireland or the West of Scotland.
Many people questioned my estimate of a million puffins - youthful
enthusiasm, I'm afraid.

We must find that film. Humane method of killing rats: probably meant as a
joke I think. Interesting about the Great Skuas. I wonder if they have
made any impact on the rats.

I have the two William Daniell prints of the Shiants. Both are views of
Garbh Eilean with smoke from kelp burning and small sailing boats offshore
loading kelp. One has impressive clouds of puffins in the sky and on the
sea. They are dated 1819. Presumably they could be scanned into the
website given the right technology.

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Tim (11 Apr 00):  Alan very kindly put together an archive of most of 
the email messages we have exchanged between us, and I have loaded it 
on to a new page on the web site.

I've also created a message board on the web site, using a third-
party host called Board Host.   It does display an advertisement at 
the top of each page, but, as that means it is free to use, I think 
that's something we can put up with!   You can use it to post 
messages and reply to existing ones.   Feel free to start a new 
subject thread at any time that you want to.   Because it's under 
third party control, there's no guarantee that Board Host won't wipe 
everything out without notice, so if you want to post anything 
important, I should keep a copy of it.   There's a box you can tick 
when you compose a message to say that you want to be notified of 
replies by email, which will save you having to check the board 
frequently for replies.

Because we don't want the world and his wife eavesdropping on our 
discussions, I've set it up to require a user name and password.   

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Adam Nicolson (28 Apr 00): I thought you might like to add this picture
to your site of the Shiants from Lemreway on Lewis on a  winter 
afternoon, Mary I on the left, Rough I in the middle, House island 
hidden, the Galatchean on the right and Trotternish in Skye perhaps 30 
miles away in the background. I forgot to say how much I liked the 
viral explanation of the blue men! 

The e-mail archive is marvellous. Alan asks about the wreck on the reef and
John about the Shackleton bomber.  The bomber, apparently, made a bi-weekly
parachute drop of mails, provisions and newspapers. It was based in Northern
Ireland. And all I know of the wreck is that it was a large German
timber-ship aground and holed on the rock at the western end of the
Galtachean, called Damhag, pronounced Davag and meaning Ox-rock, I have no
idea why. The German ship struck it in fog and a Dakota circling overhead is
said to have given you the news by yr VHF set. Does any of this ring bells?
Damhag is well known as a killer rock.  A ship and its entire crew was lost
on it in the 1850s It is still unmarked but the sea always breaks on it
which allows you to avoid it except in a fog.

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Tim (29 Apr 00): Thanks very much for the photo of the Shiants, which I
will put on the web site over the weekend.   It's a very dramatic 
photo, and it makes the islands look amazingly close to Lewis!

Regarding the wreck on the Galtachean, yes, I think we heard about it 
from the daily Dakota.   There was thick fog that morning.   Seven of 
us rowed out to see it, and got there just as she was floating off, 
with the Stornoway lifeboat in attendance.   Later we chased the 
lifeboat miles out to sea to give them some letters to be posted.   
Alan was away from base camp when we got the message, and so he didn't 
come with us.   When the Shackleton arrived and managed to drop a 
canister containing vital rat poison in the sea, he swam out to get it.
It's amazing that any of us survived! 

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Tim (2 May 00):Adam Nicolson has sent me a very dramatic photo of the 
Shiants, taken from Lewis, which I have put on the web site. I've also
taken the opportunity to update the email archive with the latest messages.

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