Ten days on Zuza - 12th June - we circumnavigate the island


 When we woke the next morning we found ourselves surrounded by a thick fog. The little yacht was still anchored up in the bay but now we had a really big ship on the shoreline, which must have been the one expected at 3.00am. It appeared to be off loading equipment for the base.



We had a leisurely breakfast, staring anxiously at the weather, and finally, around lunchtime when it had started to lift a little, the skipper, Neil made the decision to take Zuza out and circumnavigate Hirta.


We did this in an anticlockwise direction so that we first sailed out along the eastern side of Dùn, an island which is only just cut off from Hirta. It all looked very mysterious in the mist.






The division between Dùn and Hirta


St Kilda houses the largest puffin colony in Europe and Dùn is one of the places where they nest. We could see many bobbing about on the ocean and could glimpse through the fog their burrows in the grassy flanks of the cliffs. 

Unfortunately as soon as they saw us they would dive or fly off so that we only got this view of their bottoms as they went under the water.


Or we saw them running across the water to take off. Here is a video I made that afternoon on my YouTube channel  https://youtu.be/IvVv2GT5pPs
Puffins weren't the only birds who can walk on water. The cormorants were just as skilled.



We also saw razorbills and fulmars.





Some of the fulmars were in pretty poor condition

On the rocky ledges were kittiwakes and guillemot's busy with their nests. It was unfortunately too early for chicks.



We turned west round the bottom of Dùn and continued north up the west side of the island. The cliffs looked mysterious stretching away in the mist. We came to the small gap between Dùn and Hirta where we could see, through the tiny fissure the large ship beached on the shore of Village Bay. You can kayak all the way through Dùn using a cave system. I think I might get claustrophobia!



We motored all the way up the west cost of Hirta unit the channel between Hirta and Soay. The sea had numbers of puffin bobbing about and some of the cliff faces were quite colourful, even in the gloom.




The channel between Hirta and Soay has three large stacks in it which we could see as we got closer.




The tall one on the left hand side os Stac Biorach (73m tall). In the centre is Stac Shoaigh standing at 61m. This on has a natural arch in it. The smaller one to the right is Stac Dona. 


Stac Biorach

We continued northwards along the west coast of Soay. This is the traditional home of the Soay sheep, a feral prehistoric breed. When St Kilda was evacuated 107 sheep were rounded up and transferred to Hirta, although there is still a flock on Soay. It was too foggy to see any sheep on Soay but we did see a bit of a face off between a skua and a fuller over a dead puffin. The fulmar seems to have had the upper hand, but the skua did return a little later.





We could look back down the cliffs of Hirta

The coast of Soay is very rocky, although we could see little of the island itself. We passed Am Plaistair, a large rock on the north of the island and then came down the east coast to pass on the other side of Stacs Biorach and Shoaigh.


Looking towards Am Plaistair



Am Plaistair


Am Plaistair




There was a gannet colony on Soay


Stacs Shoaigh and Biorach



Cormorants on the rocks

Now motoring along the north coast of Hirta we ducked briefly into Glen Bay, although the visibility was poor and getting worse.


Our route now took us east, past a sea arch at Gob na h-Airde on the eastern side of Glen Bay, and the Stacs of Bradastac and Mina. We were now under Conachair and facing the highest cliffs in Britain at 426 metres. In the murk we were not really able to appreciate their splendour.



Bradastac


Mina Stac



Mina Stac


Our final destination was Stac Levenish, with its very distinctive shape, which lies a fair way out to the south east of Village Bay. It is, with Dùn what remains of the rim of an extinct volcano surrounding the cone which is Hirta. By the time we had got there the fog was lifting and, although it was now late afternoon we looked forward to another trip ashore.
































 






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