Cape Farewell Scottish Islands Expedition 2011

Heisker (Monach Islands)

Swam this morning off Ceann Ear, one of the Monach islands (Heisker) torn from North Uist by centuries of storm and broken into an archipelago of white shell sand beaches, dunes and flowering machair. We travelled in a day from the dark vertical near-impossibility of St Kilda to the horizontal stillness and limitless skies of... Read more ›

By Ruth Little
3 August 2011, 12:30pm
Tags: adaptation, climate change, environment, monach islands, sustainability, wildlife

Out of the Mist

We reached St Kilda after an eight-hour sail from Lochmaddy in 28 knot winds, on a grey-black sea wrinkled, serrated, swollen and rolling. Some of us bowled over by seasickness; the rest holding to bits of heeling boat in our storm gear, searching for the lost horizontal. 100 miles from the mainland, on the western... Read more ›

By Ruth Little
1 August 2011, 6:56am
Tags: history, journey, stories

Rock, wind, sand, peat, water

Lochboisdale, South Uist. Met with Joanne Ferguson of Scottish Natural Heritage, David Muir from Coast Adapt, and Huw Francis from Storas Uibhist (community landowners of the South Uist Estate, the largest community buyout in Scotland). Small crofting communities, separated by mountains, boggy peat lands and lochs, are scattered along the broken coastlines east and west,... Read more ›

By Ruth Little
31 July 2011, 9:17pm
Tags: climate change, context, environment, local knowledge, seaweed, wildlife

Mingulay, Barra, Vatersay

Mingulay Walking with Skye artist Julie Brook up the high, spongy, wildflower-thick hills behind the bothy on Mingulay: sand drift filling ruined houses of the abandoned village by the bay. Mingulay was emptied of its inhabitants over 80 years ago, but never subject to the violence and grief of the Clearances. On a clear day... Read more ›

By Ruth Little
28 July 2011, 9:36am
Tags: journey, stories, tradition

Turn, return

Walking on Canna in clear sunshine with Winnie Mackinnon, whose family have lived here for over 260 years, and Stewart Connor of the National Trust of Scotland, listening to the play of information, memory, myth and weather on these glowing pastures and basalt cliffs, I begin to understand why it’s so difficult to write about... Read more ›

By Ruth Little
24 July 2011, 11:13am
Tags: journey, stories

Stiuir

Life’s good on Eigg. The sun’s out. The tea room down by the old slipway is doing a roaring trade. The Shearwater ferry’s over from Arisaig on the mainland, and has delivered musicians Gabe McVarish and Ross Martin to the plaintive strains of shoreside piper Dona. They’re playing tonight with Eigg musician Damien Helliwell in... Read more ›

By Ruth Little
21 July 2011, 12:58pm
Tags: community, history, local knowledge, local produce, renewables, sustainability

In motion

The weather’s closing in, grey spray above and below, as we travel up the Sound of Mull to Tobermory. We’re all here, 12 artists and scientists and 3 crew, crammed, wedged and folded into our cabins on Song of the Whale, absorbing the practical details of life on a boat: sea toilets and life jackets,... Read more ›

By Ruth Little
16 July 2011, 12:50pm
Tags: SAMS, seaweed, sustainability

Provisional itinerary

Over the course of a month we will explore the Outer and Inner Hebrides in a series of four voyages. Our itinerary is subject to change, as wind and weather will influence which islands and harbours we can sail to. We set sail from Oban, stopping at the Isles of Mull, Rum and Eigg before... Read more ›

By Ruth Little
7 July 2011, 1:24pm
Tags: context, environment, place

Itchy

Citronella, Avon Skin-So-Soft, choking DEET sprays, lavender, hoods, high winds, bright sunlight, perpetual movement, body armour, despair: what to do about midges? Counting down to our Scottish Islands expedition departure on 15 July… and we’re itchy. There’s a swarm of tiny, irritating, persistent and unavoidable things to do humming round our heads. Song of the... Read more ›

By Ruth Little
6 July 2011, 11:37am
Tags: community, midges, place

Beginnings

This July Cape Farewell embarks on its biggest project yet, in partnership with Cove Park: a month-long expedition by boat across the Scottish islands from Oban across the Western Isles of Scotland to Lewis. After eight journeys to the High Arctic and one to the Peruvian Amazon, we are bringing the notion and experience of... Read more ›

By Ruth Little
6 July 2011, 10:26am
Tags: climate change, context

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