Nov 21, 2000
Rebel without a cause(way)
I was talking to my mum tonight, and she mentioned that there’s a feasibility study in progress about building a causeway to the island she lives on from the Isle of Mull, because rough seas often mean the tiny ferries can’t run in winter.
I’m going up to the island for Christmas again, and I’ve allowed myself five days to get onto the island, although the timetables maintain that it’s physically possible to leave my front door in London at 4am and (via a combination of taxi, train, bus, plane, bus, train, train, foot, ferry, bus, ferry and foot) be snug in front of my mum’s hearth by 7pm. I’ve booked a B+B for two nights in Fionnphort, the tiny hamlet from which the final ferry sails, in case I get storm-stayed. It’s frustrating being so close to the island and yet unable to get there – it’s only a mile across the Sound of Iona, but the currents are deceptively strong.
When I was working up on Iona in November 1992, I left the island early one morning to visit the doctor in Bunnessan on the Ross of Mull. By the time I’d turned around to get back on the ferry, an hour later, the sea was too rough to cross. I was storm stayed at Fionnphort for three days, kipping on kind villagers’ couches and spending a lot of time in the pub, overlooking the island just a short distance away across the Sound. It might has well have been a hundred miles.
The currents are strong in the Sound of Iona, and what seems like a very short distance often involves a much longer journey to compensate for tide, wind and current. I’ve crossed that distance by dinghy, kayak, tiny sailboat and a little rowboat with an outboard. I’ve crossed that span too many times to count in the pitch black of night, after the last ferry, or after a jolly evening in the Keel Row pub in Fionnphort.
In 1998, four island men were drowned just before Christmas when attempting to cross the Sound after a Christmas party. A wave snuck up and overturned their boat, the current took them, and they were gone. I remember those boys well. I drank with them in the only pub on the island and danced wild versions of strip the willow with them at ceilidhs (Rab Hay spun me so hard once he sprained my wrist and snapped my watchstrap). I went to one of their birthday parties and crossed the Sound with another on midsummer’s night in the driving rain to see the Tempest re-enacted in a haunted nunnery. Those boys are gone.
Look at the pictures of Iona. Think about them building a causeway to the island. Think about the cars parked in long rows along the beach. Think about how easy it will be to get onto – and off – the island…if you have a car. Iona is a special place – the isolation is half the prize.
