St. Kilda, Scotland
St. Kilda, now here is a famous place! It was once an exotic destination for the sophisticated Victorian-era traveler. At the turn of the last century this was still home to a small community of people and their animals, isolated and unique, their dogs more numerous than their children. The people of St. Kilda were well known for their taking of nesting sea birds from cliffs as abrupt and vertical as sky-scrappers, crowns in the clouds, feet in an often furious sea. The hunters clung to ropes, scaling the cliffs from above or below to gather their feast. A dangerous feat that was probably unappreciated by their only consistent audience, sheep-- sheep for wool, and lambs for dinner when birds and fish were scarce. The sheep were different than the domestic stocks of the outer world, a bit more primitive, more ancient. The women wore black over white lace, as they sat before simple dry stone dwellings spinning the yarn, watching the smaller children, and training the young girls. Today these people are gone, they were ‘rescued’ and absorbed by the outside world where they quickly disappeared like a thin fog of warm breath upon the chill air of winter. Today only the piled stones remain to remember them. The sheep seen here have been reintroduced, as have the few humans who man a radar station, care for the ruins and ponder the past.
Just after sunrise, Endeavour arrived at a group of small islands, the St. Kilda archipelago, beyond the Outer Hebrides, west of northern Scotland. Ever since the first grey that precedes the dawn, northern gannets have escorted us. These are truly remarkable birds, living spears who plunge into frigid waters in pursuit of fish at speeds that rival those of desperate commuters entering busy urban freeways. These islands are home to the largest breeding colony of northern gannets in the world. At the rookery they look like drifts of buff snow on the cliff ledges in their thousands upon thousands. There are other birds nesting here too, like puffins. We saw them on the bathing in the water, resting, and perhaps even hiding from the spouse and demanding kids. We saw them flying-- they are almost comic with their plump bodies lumbering by with a frantic pumping of undersized wings. On land we watched as they hobnobbed at the entrance to their burrows, red feet and rainbow bills: cute, strange and otherworldly as they posed for photographs.
Yes, the St. Kilda archipelago, quite remarkable and what was just described above is the sort of thing most people learn about and see on a visit here. But there is more, much more and it is found under the surrounding sea. Lisa Trotter, the Assistant Expedition Leader and I took the underwater video camera to explore the very bottom of one cliff to document and share a glimpse of this magnificent seascape. In the picture is Lisa at a depth of about 80 feet next to a wall absolutely packed with life: flower-like anemones of every color from bright red to the palest yellow, sponges, crabs, nudibranchs, sea stars, snails: more colors than I know, more things than I can remember and certainly more things than I saw. One could spend a lifetime exploring this one wall and still not know everything about it. Out here the water is rich and clean, constantly renewed by powerful currents and life abounds! Who would have known it if they had never had the chance to see it?
St. Kilda, now here is a famous place! It was once an exotic destination for the sophisticated Victorian-era traveler. At the turn of the last century this was still home to a small community of people and their animals, isolated and unique, their dogs more numerous than their children. The people of St. Kilda were well known for their taking of nesting sea birds from cliffs as abrupt and vertical as sky-scrappers, crowns in the clouds, feet in an often furious sea. The hunters clung to ropes, scaling the cliffs from above or below to gather their feast. A dangerous feat that was probably unappreciated by their only consistent audience, sheep-- sheep for wool, and lambs for dinner when birds and fish were scarce. The sheep were different than the domestic stocks of the outer world, a bit more primitive, more ancient. The women wore black over white lace, as they sat before simple dry stone dwellings spinning the yarn, watching the smaller children, and training the young girls. Today these people are gone, they were ‘rescued’ and absorbed by the outside world where they quickly disappeared like a thin fog of warm breath upon the chill air of winter. Today only the piled stones remain to remember them. The sheep seen here have been reintroduced, as have the few humans who man a radar station, care for the ruins and ponder the past.
Just after sunrise, Endeavour arrived at a group of small islands, the St. Kilda archipelago, beyond the Outer Hebrides, west of northern Scotland. Ever since the first grey that precedes the dawn, northern gannets have escorted us. These are truly remarkable birds, living spears who plunge into frigid waters in pursuit of fish at speeds that rival those of desperate commuters entering busy urban freeways. These islands are home to the largest breeding colony of northern gannets in the world. At the rookery they look like drifts of buff snow on the cliff ledges in their thousands upon thousands. There are other birds nesting here too, like puffins. We saw them on the bathing in the water, resting, and perhaps even hiding from the spouse and demanding kids. We saw them flying-- they are almost comic with their plump bodies lumbering by with a frantic pumping of undersized wings. On land we watched as they hobnobbed at the entrance to their burrows, red feet and rainbow bills: cute, strange and otherworldly as they posed for photographs.
Yes, the St. Kilda archipelago, quite remarkable and what was just described above is the sort of thing most people learn about and see on a visit here. But there is more, much more and it is found under the surrounding sea. Lisa Trotter, the Assistant Expedition Leader and I took the underwater video camera to explore the very bottom of one cliff to document and share a glimpse of this magnificent seascape. In the picture is Lisa at a depth of about 80 feet next to a wall absolutely packed with life: flower-like anemones of every color from bright red to the palest yellow, sponges, crabs, nudibranchs, sea stars, snails: more colors than I know, more things than I can remember and certainly more things than I saw. One could spend a lifetime exploring this one wall and still not know everything about it. Out here the water is rich and clean, constantly renewed by powerful currents and life abounds! Who would have known it if they had never had the chance to see it?
