St. Kilda

Our 2019 meetup location was supposed to be St. Kilda. As pointed out by Els in her blog post, the boat didn't go. I think in the process we gathered some valuable lessons learned and I would like to document them here.

Getting In

First things first: St. Kilda is an island roughly 100km off the coast of the Outer Hebrides in Scotland. The only way to get there is by boat. Several operators offer day trips. The trips are subject to cancellation as you are going out into the Atlantic ocean and the weather and the sea can be rough.

Boat trips are offered from the islands of Harris and Uist in the Outer Hebrides and from Skye in the Inner Hebrides. The distance from Skye is significantly longer than from Harris or Uist. Boats from Harris and Uist go from 8:00h to 19:00h with 4,5h to 5h on the islands. The boats from Skye travel from 7:00h to 20:00h with 4h on the island.

There are also some expensive cruises that visit the islands.

Getting There

If you travel by car, Skye is significantly easier as you can take a bridge. It takes less than 6h from Edinburgh to Skye by car. It takes nearly 9h to get to Harris or Uist as you need to take the ferry from Uig on Skye. If you are arriving from the North, the ferry would be in Ullapool. Note: Ferry times are tricky …

The previous reviews cover the 2 main ways of visiting St Kilda (Beyond having your own yacht!) – a day trip from Lewis and a longer (often c 1 week) small boat cruise of the area. In addition, however, there are a number of “Expedition Cruise” boats which take in the Islands as part of a larger (2 week) tour of UK islands or of the North Atlantic/Sub Arctic. We visited on one of the latter having set off the previous evening from Oban en route to Greenland. On arrival we were lucky to find a NW wind which left Village Bay reasonably well protected – our Zodiac landings at the little concrete pier were a bit bumpy but a planned cruise through the small gap between the islands of Hirta and Dun wasn’t possible with large Atlantic waves crashing through. The risk of not being able to land at St Kilda is high – the summer season day trips are scheduled on alternate days to provide a cushion against bad weather and you need to allow for delayed departures in your plans.

St Kilda is often stated to be the most remote island group on the British Isles ever to have been inhabited but in fact the island of North Rona is further from the nearest other land (c44 miles v 40). The latter (which our tour visited on the following day) contains early Christian remains dating back to 7th/8th century but lost its permanent population around 1844. St …

St. Kilda is easily in my top three WHS! What a truly amazing place.

Planning for the trip took some time, as indeed did getting there. We visited Easter 2009 and had booked passage on the first boat trip of the year. We gave ourselves a 4 day window to make the journey - in the end we had to extend our stay on the Outer Hebrides to make the trip due to poor weather.

The trip out and back is an experience in itself. The approach to the islands reminded me of the Skellig islands WHS in Ireland. We had around 5 hours on St. Kilda followed by a cruise around some of the smaller islands.

The Natural Trust for Scotland guide on site meets visitors at the quay for a H&S briefing. They also man a small shop and post office where you can get a St. Kilda post mark and send mail via the weekly helicopter.

The village is quite special and the views from the peaks are amazing. There was plenty of wildlife and it was lambing season when we visited. Four of the houses have been refurbished; one is now an excellent museum. St. Kilda is a little spoilt by the ugly military instillations unfortunately.

St. Kilda was certainly my most expensive WHS visited, however the trip was well worth all the effort and I would go back again in a heartbeat.

Planning for my journey started the previous year following a visit to the Isles of Lewis and Harris for the first time. I stayed at Cairisiadar with Jessie Buchanan in an excellent bed & breakfast overlooking Loch Roag on the west coast of Lewis. Here I met a lady who was I believe in her 70’s who had travelled from Aberdeen and on her way to St.Kilda. Until then I hadn't even heard of this place! She kindly left me a leaflet " Cruising with the MV Cuma".

The weather had not been too kind of late but the day that she was leaving for St.Kilda cleared with sunshine late in the day but with a near gale force wind blowing. I remember seeing the MV Cuma leave and cruise across West Loch Roag heading for the open sea – I took one photograph. At the time I did not think too much about actually going to this remote island but as time went on I became fascinated with the story and struggle of St.Kilda as have so many other people.

I read up about the islands, bought books, searched the internet and sought out articles and especially photographs. I decided that I wanted to go on this "adventure" and booked with Murdo for a trip in June – 6 days in total staying on the Cuma. I had never previously travelled in a boat other than a scenic trip for a few hours let alone across the atlantic.

The …