St Kilda, Outer Hebrides, Scotland. Day 18 , 16th July.

I’m now back to posting on Scotland. I last posted on Fuiay five months ago. Since then I travelled to India and then decided to process and post those images before continuing with the North Atlantic trip. My last post for India was in Jodhpur. It’s quite a contrast between the colourful crowded Indian desert city and the remote wilderness of one of the most isolated parts of Scotland.

Sailing through the fog and mist, this is our first glimpse of St Kilda.  This is almost the main island of Hirta but in fact is Gob Na Muce, at the south-east tip of the island of Dun.  Dun used to be connected to Hirta by a natural arch and according to a map I have seen appears to be connected at low tide.

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Dun is a Gaelic word for a fort but there is no evidence of a fort there now.

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The name St Kilda is the consequence of two mapmakers errors long ago – a transposition error and a typographical error.  Norse sailors called the Haskeir Islands, off the coast of North Uist, Skildir, which refers to a domed shield, because from a distance they were low and rounded.  This name was then mistakenly transferred to what is now the St Kilda group, further out in the Atlantic, and erroneously rendered as S. Kilda or St Kilda.

There is thus no person who was St. Kilda, or perhaps she is the virtual saint of mistaken identity.

There is also a suburb called St Kilda in Melbourne in Australia.  In 1812, a Devon landowner, Sir Thomas Dyke Acland, visited St Kilda and later named his yacht Lady of St Kilda.  That yacht ran aground near Melbourne in 1835 and gave part of its name to the suburb.

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One of the four natural arches through Dun.

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Looking north now, to the headland of Oiseval on the main island of Hirta, with the islands of Stac Lee, Stac an Armin and Boreray from left to right in the distance.

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This is another natural arch in Dun.  You might just be able to see the chink of light from the other side.

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St Kilda is an archipelago forty miles from the coast of Northern Uist (in turn south of Lewis and Harris), of which the main islands are Hirta, Dun, Boreray and Soay.

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St Kilda has huge numbers of seabirds including 30,000 pairs of Northern Gannets, 49,000 pairs of Leach’s Petrels, 136,000 pairs of Atlantic Puffins and 67,000 Northern Fulmar pairs.  There is also the St Kilda Wren, endemic to St Kilda.

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A sky filled with birds.  The tiny island of Dun is home to the largest colony of fulmars in Britain and until 1928 was the only place in Britain where they bred.

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Dun on the left, Hirta on the right.  Getting across the channel is one thing; climbing the cliffs of Dun may be another.  Perhaps it is easier on the other side.

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And here is our first view of Village Bay in Hirta.  If you look closely (click on image for a larger view) you can see the many structures left behind by the previous inhabitants.

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A map of St Kilda showing the islands.  We have come in past Dun at the south-east point to anchor in Village Bay.  Wen we leave we will go around the north coast of Hirta and out through the passage between Hirta and Soay.  In the small map at top right, you can see where St Kilda is by the red square.

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Note:  If you happen to be going backwards here, post by post, the previous posts to this one are a series on India by the previous post in my travel through Scotland is the one for Fuiay.