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In July 2011 Cape Farewell embarked on a month-long expedition by boat across the Scottish Islands, bringing the notion and experience of expedition home to the UK, with an exploration of island ecologies and cultures, and of the strategies for sustainable and resilient futures being implemented across the Scottish Isles. More ›

The Crew

The expedition crew of 40 includes island artists, storytellers, film makers, playwrights, architects, designers, musicians, community leaders, social scientists, ecologists, marine biologists, oceanographers, poets, acclaimed Gaelic singers and a chef.
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Journey’s End

And so back home to Eigg.  Behind me, memories galore and plenty to ponder upon.

We’d left Tobermory, finally sailing (albeit slowly and into the wind) north-west to the Isle of Rum, the lurch of the boat being more of a challenge to some than others.
Rum, its mountains looming large over Loch Scrizort where we ate an incredible Chinese meal prepared below by XiaoLu and exchanged thoughts on our short visit ashore.  The island’s vast landscape is home to a tiny grouping trying to forge a living as Scotland’s newest community buy out. But with no shared history or culture, few children and no elders, their task to make a viable community is no small challenge.

The next morning we motored east, to introduce my boat-mates to friends, family and our way of life on community-owned Isle of Eigg. The 48 hours spent on Eigg were packed.  Walks and talks by Eigg folk on buy-outs and renewable energy, on history and growing food.  Fishing, hunting, swimming, dancing, cooking, cycling and climbing to the highest point, An Sgurr – a good time had by all.

But as we left Eigg on Thursday morning, travelling round the Sound of Sleat and then inland to the shores of Loch Coruisk, I realised that I hadn’t had time to find out what Eigg made of Cape Farewell, or vice versa.  My fellow travellers had loved the island, the energy and welcome of its people and the passion they applied to daily life and living.  It seemed to offer an extreme contrast to the busy business-like Mull and the quiet melancholy of Rum.  But what was it that made it so?  The Eigg people welcomed this strange band of souls, puzzled (still) by what they came for or took away, but happy that they did.

And then, after a final meal of veggie curry eaten by sunset beneath the Cuillin hills, an early morning sail and a rushed goodbye on Mallaig pier, we parted.  All too soon, and before the chance to really explore and discuss what our eight nights afloat together had shown us.

So, I ponder on the idea of time and space spent together, of what that might bring to the theme of the trip – stewardship.  Eight nights should surely have been enough to get the measure of one another.  Living in such cramped quarters and sharing everything from food to bodily functions should surely make us “familiar”.  And yet I feel I don’t really know my fellow travellers at all.

How can we now make something of our time spent together?  What can we learn from the many photographs taken and notes scribbled as we criss-crossed this tiny part of the north-west Scottish islands?   Cape Farewell has brought us all together, crammed us into a small, moving space and showed us the beauty and achievements of Scottish islanders, all building a future based on their sense of place.  But, as the week one voyagers make their way home to London and Wales, to Skye, Belfast or Glasgow, I wonder what they think their role is as stewards of the place they live in.  What can the things they’ve seen or experienced on Mull, Eigg or Rum add to their understanding of their own worlds and how will they share it?  Perhaps this blog and the journey carrying on into weeks 2, 3, and 4 might reveal more.

 

 

                    

 

 

Author: Lucy Conway

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Joins the expedition for week 1 Lucy Conway is a freelance arts & creative project manager who works from her base on the Isle of Eigg. She is very involved with climate change and environmental issues - particularly at local level - developing projects which enable individuals and small communities to reduce their CO2 emissions.
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Sea Change Programme

Puffin from the Bird Yarns project, part of Cape Farewell's Sea Change programme.
Grown out of the Scottish Islands Expedition, Cape Farewell’s Sea Change is a four-year programme of research and making across Scotland’s western and northern isles. Sea Change involves over 30 UK and international artists and scientists, working collaboratively and independently to consider the relationships between people, places and resources in the context of climate change.... Read more ›

A timely reminder of how valuable an outsider’s perspective can be

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Shiants 2
“First there was an island – then there was a boat”, so begins a poem by Shetland writer Laureen Johnston.  Since owning my first boat at the age of eleven, I have been an obsessive explorer of islands, the smaller and more remote the better.  Once, in the grip of a sudden attack of aquatic... Read more ›

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Lawrence has a 7am coffee break after feeding cattle.
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A gaelic song

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Mary Jane Lamond, Jo Royle and Julie Fowlis Video by Ruth Little

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Islands and Visions

Eigg Barbecue on Song of the Whale
There is a sea view when travelling from Eigg to Mallaig where you have a 360° vision of the Small Isles, Skye, the mountains of Scotland, Mull and, far into the distance, the Outer Hebrides. At 6 am yesterday the grey of the sea bled into the numerous blues of the mountains all dramatised by... Read more ›

Annie Cattrell and Jo Shapcott in conversation about week 4 of the expedition

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JS Annie, what is it about islands? AC I like the fact that there’s a larger proportion of sea than land mass visible. There appears to be a completeness and self-sufficiency about the individual islands even though they are all distinctly different. There seems to be a big distinction between uninhabited and inhabited islands –... Read more ›

Spume

Photo by Sion Parkinson
(1) On the crossing from Ullapool to Stornaway on the Calmac, I wrote myself a list of rules, a set of behaviours that would concentrate my efforts, or assuage any guilt from any feelings of impotence, in my seven days aboard the ship. (1.1) Rules: (1.1.1) Take photographs, more than you need to, get in... Read more ›

Shelter

Cotton Grass marking  Dwelling Rona
It was my birthday when I went to Rònaidh first. A place I wanted to see since I was little but I had always missed the boat. It is about forty miles north of my house near the Butt of Lewis. I went on the sixth of August aged thirty eight on the yacht ‘Song... Read more ›

Mary Arnold-Forster

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Skye architect Mary shows the house of Fred Taylor she designed and reflects on the progress on Eigg and other green based aspirations for the islands architecture and energy supply.   Video shot by David Buckland     Sketches by Mary Arnold-Forster

Farewell and Ahoy: Log of a Voyage

Photo by Mary Smith
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