This odyssey makes no pretence to be as comprehensive as Martin Martin and certainly not as heroic as Ulysses. And although no islands produced Jason’s golden fleece they all provided a wealth of golden moments in a setting every bit as colourful as Ancient Greece.
The journey starts at that famous milestone in the Firth of Clyde, Ailsa Craig, meanders among our many wonderful island archipelagoes, and finishes at that other famous milestone in the Firth of Forth – the Bass Rock.
Hamish Haswell-Smith
November 1998
Ailsa Craig
*The 1703 edition was recently reprinted by Birlinn Ltd of Edinburgh.
AILSA CRAIG
. . . This rock in the summer-time abounds with variety of sea-fowl, that build and hatch in it. The solan geese and coulterneb are most numerous here; the latter are by the fishers called albanich, which in the ancient Irish language signifies Scotsmen. . ..
When Ailsa Craig’s ethereal shape materialises out of the mist, soaring to a height of nearly 340 metres (over 1100 feet) above the sea, one can under-stand why it was named fairy rock (aillse creag) by some ancient Celtic mariner. But it has also, more prosaically, been called Elizabeth’s rock or Alastair’s rock and its popular name nowadays is Paddy’s Milestone. It is more than twelve times the area and three times the height of the Bass Rock, which is a mere pimple by comparison, and it is so precipitous that even the sea birds find it impossible to nest on some of the cliffs.
A glacier flowing down the Clyde valley 25,000 years ago, when Scotland lay smothered under a thick sheet of ice, broke off pieces of Ailsa Craig and scattered them between Wales and the Pennines in the English Midlands. They still lie there today. The rock is mainly volcanic basalt but there is a seam of reddish fine-grained micro-granite which is the ideal material for curling stones. These were quarried and cut on the island then polished on the mainland and a few are still manufactured today for connoisseurs.
It’s more than a decade since I landed on Ailsa Craig. We sailed there in a trusty bilge-keeled ketch – Jeananne – which belonged to my present-day sailing partners. She drew only one metre which let us lie in shallow water alongside the small wooden jetty. Anchoring is not easy as the sea bottom is steep and boulder strewn.
A rusty narrow-gauge railway line runs from the jetty past the quarrymen’s cottages to the old quarry on the south side. A century ago almost thirty people – quarrymen, lighthouse keepers, and their families – lived here but the quarrymen left and the lighthouse is now automatic. There are heaps of miniature Henry Moore sculptures – waste granite pieces from which the spheroidal curling stones have been cut leaving voluptuous curved forms.
A zig-zag path starts near the lighthouse and climbs past the old square keep 100 metres up the slope. It was said to be a retreat for the monks of Crossraguel Abbey (near Maybole) and that the Catholics once held it on behalf of Philip 11 of Spain. Further up, the path passes over the shallow valley of Garraloo and beside the tiny Garra Loch before making its way to the top. Here the world falls away in a sudden vertiginous plunge to the sea far below and the view is enthralling. Beyond the white lace of the surf lie the wide stretches of the Firth of Clyde with Arran, the Ayrshire coast, and the long dark shape of Ulster on the south-western horizon. Experienced climbers may prefer to go directly up the slope from the landing place. This is not difficult but in places the route leads over steeply inclined slabs.
Ailsa Craig is noted for its immense gannet colony which accounts for about five per cent of the world’s total gannet population. There also used to be many puffins and an ornithologist reported in the 1860s that there were at least 250,000 pairs and that when he disturbed them ‘their numbers seemed so great as to cause a bewildering darkness’. But in 1889 brown rats arrived off ships ferrying supplies to the newly built lighthouse and by 1984 they had wiped out the entire puffin population. (Rabbits, incidentally, were introduced about the same time by the quarrymen to supplement their diet – and were later claimed to be interbreeding with the rats!) In 1991 a massive rat eradication programme was instituted and, to date, it seems to have been successful. Puffins are, at last, visiting the island again.
Instead of climbing it is possible to complete a relatively easy two-mile circumnavigation of the island. The exposed corner at Stranny Point in the south-west is the only minor obstruction. It has to be negotiated to reach the dramatic Water Cave when coming from the east past Little Ailsa so try and time it near low water.
The names of features on Ailsa Craig are pure poetry – for example, Spot of Grass, Bare Stack, Doras Yett, Ashydoo, Rotten Nick and Kennedy’s Nags. Ailsa Craig itself is mentioned in the poetry of both Wordsworth and Keats but, strangely, not by Burns who grew up within sight of it.
SANDA
. . . the isle Avon, above a mile in circumference, lies to the south of Kintyre Mull; it hath a harbour for barques on the north. . .
. . . If any man be disposed to live a solitary, retired life, and to withdraw from the noise of the world, he may have a place of retreat there in a small island, or in the corner of a large one, where he may enjoy himself and live at a very cheap rate.
Anyone who steps on the tiny 300-acre island of Sanda which lies off the Mull of Kintyre could be seriously at risk. Legend claims that St Ninian was buried here and an ancient curse warns anyone who steps on his grave that they will die within a year. The site used to be marked by an alder tree but there are no longer any alder trees on the island and so the position of the grave is unknown.
I suppose this risk is tolerable for a short visit but it must be a continual worry for the farmer-owner, John Gannon. Whether or not he had inadvertently stepped on the grave, Mr Gannon nearly lost his life in 1996 when his boat capsized and he was trapped beneath it. Luckily there was sufficient air in the hull for him to survive until he was rescued by the Campbeltown lifeboat. Such incidents highlight the dangers of a lonely island existence and should be considered carefully by all would-be island purchasers.
Incidentally, it was the Campbeltown lifeboat which carried out the renowned rescue in 1946 of all fifty-four passengers and crew of the SS Byron Darnton. They were saved from the wreck in the nick of time as she broke up on the rocks on the south side of Sanda.
The Norse sometimes referred to Sanda as ‘Havn’ because it provided a reasonable offshore haven or harbour for boats. For many centuries this led to the island being called ‘Avon’ and even led to one eminent geographer wondering why an island had been given the Gaelic word for river (abhainn).
But if for no other reason, its anchorage makes Sanda a useful stopping-off point when waiting for a suitable tide to round the sometimes-treacherous Mull of Kintyre. It is worth going ashore on such occasions for it has the enchantment of all our islands. The farmhouse, which has been restored by the owner, is just beside the jetty and slipway and the old schoolhouse is nearby. In the 1890s this was the home of an active fishing community of thirty-six souls.
. . .a conspicious cruciform snapea stone. . .
On our last visit, en route for the Mull and waiting for the tide, it was Craig’s unfortunate turn in the galley.