The Shiant Isles

The boat crunches up onto the bank of the bay, waves tugging at us the whole time as guillemots and razorbills flap furiously towards the cliffs. We breath in the smell of the salt-sprayed land and sky. The air is thick with sounds of birds calling with frenzied energy and the water jostling the rocks into ever-changing arrangements. 

Landing at Mol Mor, the shingle beach which connects the two main islands, we pull our bags and equipment up the small cliff and fling them into to the bothy, nestled above the rocks known as Sgeirean Mol na h-Athadh. The boat turns away and we are alone on the uninhabited island.

Life is simple for the next few days, pacing up paths and tracks along the length of Eilean an Tighe and scrambling up the face of Garbh Eilean, the rough island. The bulbous face, called Sron Lionta, is crisscrossed with tracks taken by the sheep, far more nimble than we as they scurry up the hillside. We can only look across to third island, Eilean Mhuire, too far too swim but we watch the ever-changing flows of water and wind. Waves crash through the arch that protrudes like a gate from Garbh Eilean. 

In the mornings we rise early, before dawn, to catch the light, and in the pink stillness of the breaking day, we wait as colour floods the tufts of grass. At night we retire to the bothy and watch the distant flash of ships and lighthouses. One boat, Silver Fern, tucks into the water near the Shiants, winking at us in the dark.

Our rhythms are dictated by the light of the days, short still but lengthening, stretching with the season. We arrive at the time of the turning. The air is clear and the sun bright, but the cold winds and white-crested waves still whisper of winter days barely gone. On the southern tip of Eilean an Tighe, the last gaggles of barnacle geese huddle conspiratorially, plotting their escape to Greenland breeding grounds. Under the blue dawn light of a waxing gibbous, suspended above the Trotternish ridge, they take flight in formation. Their voices are drowned out by the masses of kittiwakes, fulmars and auks who have already arrived to claim the precipitous nesting spots on black basalt columns. A puffin or two passes over, but the humorous little birds are still to make their grand entrance.

The land, too, suggests new life and growth, teasing us with the unfurled buds of rock campion. Sea thrift is still a skeletal remnant on lichen rocks of green, grey and glowing orange.

It’s a place of beauty but also harshness. The lambs just born, bloody and bleating, must contend with the slippery rocks and circling ravens and eagles, while the ewes gently nuzzle and encourage them. Winds blow across the slopes, but we find hollows to nestle into, grassy shelters were the sun warms our bones, and we can watch the seabirds soar. The hard edges of the rock meet the growing crests of the sea, blackness fraying into foamy whiteness. Cormorants and shags sit on every crag, unbothered by the wash of the tide that hovers a moment on the rocks, then drains down in silver threads back into the swell.

Days are full and yet not filled with anything that requires deadlines or urgency, complete in a way which feeds body and mind. Walking, swimming and observing the world around, reading in the sun. Meals are made from whatever we have brought with us, taken when we feel hungry. Naps creep up on us after our lungs have breathed in sea air and our legs roamed on rocks and marsh. We sleep deeply in the natural darkness. 

We are close to home, looking across to the coast of Skye, and yet also alone. But it’s not lonely. We enjoy the companionship of living simply alongside one another, and tumbledown walls and old shielings remind us of those who once made their home here. In the bay the oyster catchers chatter and a large male seal bobs with curiosity, inspecting as we swim slowly. And at night there’s still the comforting light of Silver Fern. 

One afternoon we swim a little way around the coast, hopping in and out of the water. We startle the oyster catchers who trill their warning, darting in formation arrows of black and white, orange beaks purposefully pointed. Barnacle covered rocks are sharp and scratchy, but the cliffs provide inviting routes. We come to Annat, at the foot of a glen, one of the earliest sites of settlement on Garbh Eilean, and we linger for a while in the ruins.

On the day we leave the weather is turning. Wind is whipping around the island and the sea is rough. The boat lurches from wave to wave, grey walls of water surrounding us. At one point I look across and see a guillemot calmy paddling in the stormy seas, unperturbed by the churn. Legend has it that the waters are inhabited by the Blue Men of the Minch, who may pull you down to the depths below. Yet we make it back safely, and stepping off the boat, it feels a little like waking from a dream.

I look back at the islands, surrounded by wind and rain, but I recall our last afternoon. We lay on the ground above the bothy in the sun, under down duvets for warmth, and closed our eyes. Softness of grass, hardness of rock. Birds calling, stones grating, wind blowing, sea churning against the islands, as it has always done.