Friday 21 June St Kilda

Well - Wednesday, our due date of sailing dawned windy and damp. No sailing that day we were told.  So, most of us departed fo9r Stornoway and a walk round town. Then, a bit of culture - off to Dun Carloway and Callanish. Callanish has its excellent visitor centre, and the coffee and cake was very welcome. While everyone should be able to enjoy these world class sites in their own way, Callanish was a wee bit spoilt by a bloke playing the pipes (we thought for his girlfriend as he managed to smooch and play at the same time - no mean feat). The view also had rather large scaffiold towers and vans emblazoned "BBC".

Back to Leverburgh, where Alison, our cook, rustled up mackeral fillets in oatmeal, with boiled baby new potatoes with kale and glazed onion - yum,!

On the morning of the 20th, we received a telephone call sayinhg that we should be down at the jetty at 2 to load, had lunch at Am Botham (a mistake for some - perhaps best left unmentioned), then off to meet up with Orca 2 where we formed a very tidy chain gang and loaded the boat. Set off at 2,15 for what was a fairly rough crossing for the most part. THis meant that the Orca could not get up to normal cruising speed and for some time, we smacked downh in to the trough between waves. Arrives St Kilda just after 5.15 where we got those who felt most poorly off to House 1 for a cup of tea and to warm up. Work Party 2 had left us with the fire on, and a welcome pot of soup.                       It is amazing how quickly one recovers from sea sickness when ones feet hit terra firma. While our convalescents convalesced (under pretty firm instruction I have to add), others ferried everything up to Housesnumber 1, 2, 4 and 6 respectively (Hose 1 is our living area, the blokes are in House 2, House 3 is the Museum, ladies are in House 4). By the time that was done, we were all pretty damp (some might say "soaked"!). Back to House 1, where Alison had soup for us all, followed by haggis and tatties - if this beconmes rather food orientated, apologies, but between meals, we work, so it is either work or eat.

Today (21 June), a meeting with the Archaeologist, Kevin, who had kindly had a chociolate cake readyt for us on our arrival. Kevin talked about eh archaeology work he is doing, and briefed everyohne on what to do when one finds artefacts, then off to work,  Today we have 2 groups alternating working on rebuilding tumbles in dykes and cleits and on doing turf repairs to cleit roofs. Each group will do each job, thus building up our skills pool. After the skills are built up, we can take on some of the more challenging tumbles to dykes.  We have "before" pictures to work from which makes our job easier. In this picture, Jana compares the finished job with the "before" picture.

 Another small tumble - anh excellent training exercise. St Kildan walling is very difficult to replkicate if one has been on a drystone dyking course - the building is completely random (but appears to last a rather long time). We are too acustomed to straight kines. The other trick is to step back after placing each stone to see how the randomness fits in with what is there.

Today, the Hebridean Princes arrived (50 ashore) and 3 trip boats each bringing day trippers. Now the shop comes in to its own, so we have three volunteers (Sara, Jo and Janice) who will ensure that tyhere is always cover in the shop. As I came down to see how they were getting on, look what met my eyes - standing outside the shop, having coffee from china cups off the Hebridean Princess - Janice (centre) and Sara (right)

hard at work!  Seriously, they were doing a great job, and in that wee lull between parties landing, the crew of the HP had offered them coffee.  They havge taken to our St K shop like ducks to water - re-ordering the shop, stamping passports with our St K stamp on request, taking cards from visitors to put in the post, and generally being friendly and helpful to all those that come in the their shop.

An excellent first day - work well under way, everyone seems happy and acquiring the skills we need to do the work. Now...... I wonder whats for dinner?