By Ruth Little – Cape Farewell
Coming to the end of our third week on Song of the Whale, on a windless afternoon in a rolling Atlantic offshore from Heisker – the Monach Isles – in the Outer Hebrides. A pod of dolphins break the silver-blue swell and disappear beneath the boat, blowing loudly as they pass. The lighthouse on the islands is an anomalous vertical line on a horizon of sea and low-lying dark silhouettes. We sailed this morning from St Kilda where we’ve spent the last 2 days walking in wonder among the ruined and rebuilt houses above Village Bay, climbing the spongy uplands and cliff-tops, and warding off dive-bombing arctic skuas.
We left Oban on 15 July and have sailed from Mull to Rum and Eigg, Skye, Canna, Mingulay, Barra, Vatersay, South and North Uist and St Kilda. Tonight we’ll anchor off the Monachs before journeying to Taransay, Harris, Stornoway, the Shiant islands, Skye and Eigg again. We’ve been blessed on our travels by fair weather, a wonderful and talented crew, and by this beautiful boat, which has held so much of our conversation, reflection and research. And a lot of story and song: we’re joined on board this week by Lewis story-teller and poet Ian Stephen, and three great Gaelic singers, Julie Fowlis, Mary Smith and Mary Jane Lamond from Cape Breton. On board and ashore, they’ve shared with us the most beautiful and haunting songs from the islands: tales of lost love, wild weather, birdsong and departure. They’ve spent the last week on Song of the Whale, the third of four crews of artists and scientists sailing across the Hebrides for a month as part of Cape Farewell’s tenth anniversary expedition.
Designed in partnership with MCR skipper Richard McLanaghan, the project is an exploration of the notion and practice of stewardship across Scotland’s islands in times of ecological and climate change, and a celebration of community initiatives around sustainability. In all, over 30 artists and scientists will join the boat – among them poets, playwrights, photographers, film-makers, visual artists, sculptors, designers, architects, oceanographers, marine biologists and ecologists. We’ve squeezed companionably into the Song of the Whale’s 4 cabins, galley and saloon; eaten delicious locally produced food on her decks, become masters of the arcane art of pumping the heads…Well, perhaps not quite masters…We’ve leapt in and out of the zodiacs, clambered to the crow’s nest, crawled with engineer Mat Jerram around the engine room, and hauled, reefed and tangled ourselves in ropes with crew member Jo Royle, who sailed last year from San Francisco to Sydney on Plastiki – a boat made entirely from plastic bottles and recycled materials.
The past three weeks have been astonishing and inspiring. Song of the Whale has been our base for countless forays onto rocky headlands, white shell-sand beaches, flowering machair, crofting communities and island townships, for plunges into cold clear Scottish waters, where we’ve swum with grey seals, kelp and basking sharks, watched puffins burst from clifftops and gannets drop like plumb lines into the sea. We’ve held ceilidhs on Eigg, Skye, Barra and North Uist, visited crofts, heritage sites, community land ownership schemes and bird reserves, and learned about local projects in renewable energy and food production. We’ve learned too about the resilience and value of the Gaelic language and culture; its rich oral traditions and its communal spirit, which Mary, Mary Jane and Julie express in everything they do. We’re soaked in new knowledge, old myths, sunshine and salt water, and we’re faring very, very well.
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