Leaving Kilda

After a week of unstable weather it was slowly time to move on. Fortunately we could check the weather forecast occasionally on the NTS computer. It looked like a weather window was appearing for Sunday for us to consider a crossing. On Saturday we were getting ready for the next day, we have packed most of our stuff to have swift morning start, and went for walk. After a traditional rainy morning, the mist unusually lifted, and it turned out to be a really beautiful day. We were enjoying the sun, almost for the first time here, together with the views around the island. One would say we had a perfect afternoon to get excited about the next day paddling. But we weren’t.

For some reason we were getting more and more anxious, and feeling of something being wrong was growing stronger. After six o’clock we have asked for one more chance to look at the forecast. The window was still there, it looked quite similar to the one we had on a crossing here. But again, as we were looking at it, that feeling of something being wrong was getting stronger and stronger. And as we tried to visualise our crossing, project the conditions, the time spent paddling and how we will cope, we could not visualise the landing. The feeling we were getting from this was so strong and unpleasant, that we could almost touch it. In the end it was quite simple, we decided to postpone our crossing till the next window available. Next morning we had a chat about the weather with skipper from a charter boat Elisabeth G while he was unloading his passengers on the quay. Straightaway he offered us a lift back to Levenbourg the following morning. And as we felt that it was time for us to leave Kilda, we accepted. In the end, we have not yet been on such boat. We were deprived of another great crossing to put to our names, however we gained much more. We were given a chance of another beautiful day on Kilda and were able to paddle to Boreray and stacks while everything was visible. This trip had more pros than cons, not only we saw the islands and their magnificent cliffs in their whole beauty, we could also allow the thousands of flying creatures to shit on our heads, shoulders, not knees or toes, but boats and everything else.

(Michal and Natalie)

While we were making the crossing on the Elisabeth G I felt like the gannet being chased by the skuas. Only instead of throwing up fish I was disposing of morning coffee. No, I ain’t no sailor.

(Natalie)