Day 2; June 5th

As breakfast, morning tea, lunch, midday tea or diner is served, we ring a large bell. It is Thursday and today is our first day of work. The bell rings at eight o'clock for breakfast.
David, the leader of the workparty is responsible for the division of the work to be done.
Kevin the archeologist needs a group of people to repair the roofs of some cleiths with new sods.
Another group will repair the slates on the roof of the church, schoolhouse and the rangers' house.
I'm in the group with Kevin. First we need to remove old sods, dig out new ones and put them on the cleiths. The holes we leave by digging out the new sods need to be refilled with sand.
The weather is nice, the work not to bad and the morning teabreak soon.

After lunch we don't work, but Kevin takes us out for a tour around the old village. He has got a lot to tell in a heavy Glasgow accent and he hardly keeps his mouth shut. But his stories are interesting and they shed a different light on the usual story of St. Kilda. I will tell a bit more about that in another post.

In the meantime it has started to rain and listening to Kevin wears me out.

Evening diner and after diner chat is very nice and sociable. First sips of whiskey.

Day 1; June 4th

Today is the day; we will finally go to St. Kilda! The weather is perfect; sun and calm blue sea.

The journey takes about four hours, and then there it finally is St. Kilda;

The first thing you see are the military buildings of Qinetiq. Which is not a pretty sight, but they are part of St. Kilda's history.

Since 1957 there is an army base on St. Kilda. The base is still in possesion of the army, and not accesible for tourists. But the radar is no longer being operated by the army, but by Qinetiq, a
defence technology compagnie.

The departing group waits for us on the pier together with Kevin, the archeologist. They help us with our luggage. All the luggage together with all the food needs to be brought up to the village. The people of Qinetiq give us a hand by using a large forklift.
Rachel and I help Flo, our cook, to check the supplies. In the meantime the boats all disappeared from the bay, and the island is for the first time "ours". We enjoy the lovely wheather and the view over the bay.

There are 6 houses restored for the workparty; number 1 is the common room, with a kitchen and diningroom, number 2 is the "ladiesboudoir", number 3 is the museum, number 4 is the gents' room, number 5 is the workshop with all the tools, and number 6 is the room for the workpartyleader and office.

Me at the ladies' boudoir

We make a short walk up the hills to "the Gap", from where you have a wonderfull view on the cliffs and over Boreray.

Flo is making us a wonderfull dinner and after dinner we go to the pub, the Puff-in, then up to bed.
Our first day on St. Kilda is over.

Finally!

Isn't it a great accomplishment to write about an island for months on which you've never set foot? Tomorrow it will finally be. But if you would expect a huge amount of posts from me I'm sorry to disappoint you. On St.Kilda there will not be wifi nor internetcoverage. From tomorrow on there will be silence on my blog until at least 18th June.
But I will keep a diary, so I will have plenty to write about when I get back!

The Scottish Hebrides

Friday I arrived in Stornoway. I'm staying in Hebhostel; a very nice hostel near the harbor. Stornoway is  the main town of Lewis. Lewis is one of the isles of the Outer Hebrides in Scotland. 

The "Hebrides" is an archipelago in Scotland  consisting of the Inner and Outer Hebrides. The Outer Hebrides are the Western isles. The largests are -from North to South- Lewis and Harris; which is one isle, North Uist, Benbecula, South Uist and Barra. St. Kilda belongs to the Outer Hebrides.

The Outer Hebrides have long been influenced by the Norwegians. Until 1266 they belonged to Norway. In contrast to the Inner Hebrides - of which the larger, more well known isles are Skye, Mull, Raasay - here is relatively little tourism.
The real Scotland is found on the Outer Hebrides. Here is the last stronghold of the Scottish-Gaellic language. The official name of the Western Isles is Na h-Eileanan Siar. 

I visited the Outer Hebrides in 2009. In my first post of this blog (of november 2013) I explained my fascination for St. Kilda dates from that time.

There is not much to do in Stornoway, but it has a pretty colorfull harbor, and there are good opportunities to make long walks in the park surrounding the castle.

Saturday I went by bus to Callanish Standing Stones; an impressive stone cirkel of more than 4000 years old. Older than Stonehenge but just as impressive.

In the evening it was very agreeable in town with the pubs playing live music, but today it is Sunday, and almost everything is closed. There are even no buses going anywhere.  

I made a run and a hike in the park, and I went up to war memorial site for the soldiers of World War I.

Myths about St. Kilda

Today I bought a book named "St. Kilda Myth & Reality". It is a publication of a discussion session entitled "writing about St. Kilda: Myth and Reality", which was held here in Stornoway in 2006.

The speakers examined how the huge amount of publications about St. Kilda affected its image. They assume the image is too romantic. The St.Kildans are described as some kind of "noble savages", and the landscape being supreme, because of its remoteness and its dramatic past.

It is pretty interesting to read about St.Kilda from a different point of view, and I hope to keep a critical eye to see the history in its perspective.

Kit list

A very short post today. Tomorrow I'll be flying to Stornoway. The adventure is about to begin!

I'm preparing myself for the trip and packed my backpack. I have to keep under 20 kilogram with my luggage. I had to cancel a few things, but now I've come to a satisfying equipment. The luggage in the backpack is now about 15 kilogram, and the hand luggage weights about 5. 

Here is my kit list:

luggage		hand luggage
toiletbag with:		camera
	Nivea	binoculars
	suncream	waka waka
	body cream	sunglasses
	toothpaste	reading glasses
	toothbrush	toiletbag with:
	anti midgetcream		toothbrush
	deodorant		lipbalm
	toothsticks		comb
	shampoo		paracetamol
	earplugs		tickpin
	elastics		pincet
	comb		eyebrowpencil
	flos		kayal
	paracetamol	chewing gum
	shavingknifes	small soundbox
	nailclipper	Iphone
mittens		IPad
cap		purse
pyama			bank card
pillow case (2)			credit card
clean underpants			drivers licence
bra’s			public transport chip card
sportsgear:			money
	runningshirt (2)	book
	sports bra (2)	two clean underpants
	runningcoat	clean T-shirt
	runningshoes	raincoat
	running socks	e-ticket
	running band for my Iphone	information pakket
T-shirts short sleeve		passport
T-shirts long sleeve		etui with cables for recharging etc.
sweater
raintrousers
raincoat
jeans
outdoortrousers
socks
shoes
towels (2)
sleepingbag

Beaked whales

In our national newspaper the NRC of 3th May 2014 I read an article about beaked whales. Between the 1^st and 6^th of April, at least five Cuvier’s beaked whales stranded on Crete. Very likely a military exercise with sonar in the same week caused this multiple stranding.

This reminded me of another article I read in the ranger’s diary on the “kilda.org.uk” website (http://www.kilda.org.uk/frame2.htm). In September 2013 a beaked whale stranded with her calve on St. Kilda. The calve managed to get back to deep water, but the mother unfortunately died. The mother was still lactating, so the chances of survival for the orphaned calve was considered very poor.

The family of beaked whales or Ziphiidae is a whale family of which little is known. They are very shy and they hunt in deep sea. There are six different genuses of beaked whales and at least 22 different species, some of which have never been seen alive.

Beaked whales are a remarkable family. Most of them live solitary or in small groups up to four individuals. Scientists shot satellite transmitters in the skin of a group of Cuvier's beaked whales and discovered that beaked whales can dive up to 3,000 metres deep. They hunt for squid or deep sea fish using sonar and they can stay down for more than two hours.

Because lungs can’t resist the high pressure in deep sea, beaked whales use their muscles to store oxygen. The muscles of beaked whales can take a very 
high amount of oxygen which is used very efficiently.

Stranding of beaked whales is rare. Multiple strandings of beaked whales only occur when military exercises with sonar are held. These stranded animals almost always show internal bleeding in head, lungs or kidneys; possibly caused by caisson disease (decompression sickness), although normally whales are well adapted to prevent caisson disease.

The stranded animal on St.Kilda was a Sowerby’s beaked whale or North Atlantic beaked whale (Mesoplodon bidens). The whale was examined by the Scottish Marine Animal Stranding Scheme (SMASS). The examination hoped to establish the cause of death of this specific individual, and it would provide a lot of information about the species.

In the brain of this individual a blood clot was found. It is not clear whether this was the cause of the stranding or a result of the struggle of the creature on land.

For the ranger on St. Kilda it must have had mixed feelings; a unique chance to examine a rare, unknown creature, but unfortunately at the expense of a deceased individual and his orphaned calve.