www.iska.ie

So there I am, dusting the shelves in the library (very Antarctic hero-ish I know), and what do I see in the \'travel\' section .... one of my favourite books! I\'d been planning on bringing Oileain south with me, but left it for others to make more use of in the northern hemisphere. Mr. Walsh, any idea how it got here??

All good here in Halley Bay - I swapped my little plastic kayak for the 4,000 ton RRS Ernest Shackleton and enjoyed 2 months of steering her from Immingham to Halley where we arrived on New Year\'s Eve. Very busy summer season, which included lots of flight work, a week of chasing Weddell seals on the sea ice and my new found role of chief bin lady on the Brunt Ice Shelf. We\'re down to 11 souls on base since end of Feb and first plane is due back in Nov with ship to follow in Dec. Camping last week - minus 31 in the tent, lots of frozen condensed breath IN my sleeping bag. And in answer to the question of what exactly do we do down here? - a lot of snow digging!! And l do like kayaking vicariously through you all!!
Cheers, Susanna

jesus here am i looking at the flames of the logs in the stove with the kilfinora lads playing on the telly a wee bit of wind outside temp around 7+ outside the thought of -30 something :woohoo:

Hey Susanna,

That sounds like one cold place. Keep your ponytail dry whatever you do. I amn’t guilty on this one though. I didn’t put Antarctica in Oileáin or Oileáin in Antarctica. The furthest away from Ireland Oileáin has ever strayed is Rockall, but some folks say that isn’t straying at all at all ?

Best get used to the planet being a small village, a bit like Carrick-on-Shannon, only larger. Everyone is only so many “stages” removed from anyone else. This has been shown to me any number of times, but Oileáin has actually become efficient at it. My favourite such Oileáin stories are the very first ever and also as it happens, the most recent. At opposite ends chronologically of the Oileáin story, they say the same thing.

Your tale really struck a chord with me, but I don’t want to bore the average reader of this excellent Bulletin Board, so beware folks, the next posting and the one immediately after are a bit sentimental. Read them if you will, but the complaints department is closed.

DWalsh

In April 1995 on a cycling trip in county Antrim, I first heard about a thing called the world wide web (the WHAT, Gay ?) from a publisher friend, who said it was ideal for the notes and scribbles someone in the group told him I had been accumulating. I spent the Mayday weekend putting up Ireland’s first ever fully completed and operational canoeing website, dedicated to the ISKA (I was head honcho at the time), and in there as an “afterthought” was a link to the text of Oileáin. On the Saturday night of the whit weekend following, four weeks later less two days, my little brother was at a party in Greystones, and people were chatting and drinking beers and discussing sport (it’s a man thing Susanna, you wouldn’t understand). Anyway a guy home on holidays from Seattle said his sport was sea kayaking and he was hoping to do a bit in Ireland, that he had never known Ireland was so organised in sea kayaking compared to everywhere else (if only he knew, does anyone remember ?). He said the sport in Ireland had its own website and even a guide to its offshore islands. My little brother (who knew nothing of websites or ever heard of Oileáin) told the guy his big brother was into that particular sport as it happened and details were gone into. Shock horror, small world etc etc when the surname was spotted.

Better still, but patience is needed for this one, in October 2008 my daughter Sarah, who is making her way round the globe, currently working as a nurse in Melbourne Hospital in Australia., was on a beach somewhere is southeast Asia. She picked up on an Irish voice, as one does, certainly as any offspring of mine does. Two sisters, both born on Inishbofin, one living in Cleggan, the other on Inishturk. Sarah said she didn’t know that part of the world but her Da would, he is really into islands, he paddles a canoe and he goes out to them all the time and has even written a …… “Not Oileáin !”

Anyway, she recounted this story to me by email so I recounted to her the details of the latest adventure Fred and I had had, the previous month, because coincidentally it happened to be in that area. I felt she could re-tell it that evening and it would be interesting to these women who were from that area, they would know the places etc, so I suggested she read it out and she did. I thought Sarah mightn’t take much from the story but the women would, surely. I never imagined how much. Anyway, here it is, what I wrote for Sarah to read out to these women.

Fred and I have only been marooned three times in all the 19 years we have been Oileáining, once on the Saltees and now twice on Inishturk, Mayo. Some coincidence ? Oileáin had begun out of a passage between Inishbofin and Inishturk, when we couldn’t find a landing on the intervening Davillaun, a sausage shaped island midway. We passed up the wrong (north) side and let it go. That disappointment rankled so much it eventually begat Oileáin.

Years later, when my personal tally of “islands landed upon” neared 400, we took a decision that it would be nice were it Davillaun. And it was. And it was nice. Hoovering everything nearby, even the Lecky Rocks, we ended up overnighting on a wee yoke called Inishdalla. The weather was so balmy the midgies ate us alive. The view from the summit is unique. Though there is water all round for 360 degrees, there is land interrupting the horizon for 340 degrees. I do not believe that factor exists anywhere else in Ireland.

Next morning it was force 6 from the SE, directly from where we wanted to go, Renvyle. Downwind was Inishturk, 2 miles away. Across the wind, miles off to the NE was Roonagh, a huge land journey back to our cars, and only Inishbofin to the SW, and even then a “carry” from the east end of a mile and a half. We tried Renvyle and it didn’t work, 100m in far too long a time. If we tired, we would have to turn and run downwind, already tired. The hard decision got made, it was the old dogs for the hard road and so we entered the Inishturk harbour. Safe at last.

So we walked the circuit of the island and then started cadging lifts home on boats. It was surprisingly busy with divers, hikers, whoever. One fisherman Michael O’Toole turned out to be the guy who bailed us out in 1991 when this had all happened before. We had resigned ourselves to a night on the island when into the harbour came the Bofin ferry, doing some sort of nixer. The Cleggan Bofin ferry visits Turk occasionally to encourage hillwalking for guests of the hotel on the Sky Road in Clifden (and by the way, the password is “cheers”). Whatever, we gladly jumped on board when they let us, encouraged by O’Toole.

The captain of the ship wouldn’t take money from us when O’Toole told him our plight. Marooned sea-goers, we got fools pardon. We went all the way to Cleggan with them for nix. We got a taxi to take us back to our cars in Renvyle and while we waited we had the beautifullest chowder ever in the pub. Fred saw the crew having a pint and paid the round, thanks be to God.

Sarah read all this out in a beach tavern wherever that evening, and guess what ?

• O’Toole is the uncle of the two girls

• the twin captains of the Bofin ferry are the two husbands of the two sisters,

• the sister Sarah met makes the chowder in the pub, and

• (found out later) my brother Rory knew both families.

David Walsh

Four poster beds, gourmet cuisine.