St Kilda in the sunshine

The weather was marvellous for our long dreamed of trip to St Kilda today. We left at 8 a.m. from Leverburgh. It's so remote - nearly three hours each way on the boat. But the crew were informative and pleasant, and the journey flew by. It was so exciting when we landed on Hirta, the largest island, which was inhabited for a thousand years until the last inhabitants left in 1930. Being Andersons, we immediately headed for the highest point on the island (in total we ascended 362 metres and had a circular walk of about 8 km) and we were rewarded all the way with fantastic views of Village Bay, Soay, Boreray, and sea stacks. We saw the strange wild little St Kilda sheep and lots of birds including arctic terns and very aggressive bonxies (skuas) who dive bombed us, and a bird watcher told us that a strange sound we kept hearing was a drumming snipe! I could hardly believe that I was on St Kilda! We descended to the village via The Gap, and passed lots of "cleats" which were low stone structures where the villagers used to dry out their food. Then we walked along the one long street past all the deserted houses and then the restored ones. Interestingly, there was no "St Kilda"; the Vikings called the islands "skildas" which means "shields" (because of their shape) but a medieval cartographer wrongly transcribed it as S.Kilda which was thenceforth assumed to refer to a saint. We had a good five hours on the island.

Back on the boat we circumnavigated the amazing sea stacks of Boreray (the highest in the UK) and thousands of gannets rose into the air above us. Davie was "shat on from a great height" but our skipper assured him that this was very lucky. We also saw puffins, guillemots and more bonxies, who were chasing the gannets to try to make them vomit up their food! 

When we got back to South Harris my phone lit up with messages. Our furry boy Jack, who we had left at his usual cattery in Newarthill where he is treated like a prince, is gravely ill and is at the vet's on oxygen. We had a long conversation with lovely vet Gail about different options and what will be best for him. The next twenty four hours will be crucial.