Walking the coast

How long is the coast of Fair Isle? Well, how long would you like it to be? Dave, our host at the South Light, told us it was 40 miles long, maybe even 50, but to achieve that you'd need to walk, not just round every inlet but round every boulder. Keeping, as we did, a safe yard or so from the cliff edge, it's probably no more than 28 miles, which is still plenty of inlets and headlands and unexpected changes of direction and new views (as you can see from the map).

On Saturday we set off clockwise from the South Light, a steep climb up Malcolm's Head, on turf strewn with limpet shells. This is puffin territory, we were told, and the trick is to go up there just before sunset and catch them posing against the setting sun. Later we also heard a more practical explanation: at this time of year, the puffins have laid their eggs, and the males spend the day out at sea feeding while the female stays in the burrow and looks after the egg; then, shortly before sunset, the males start to gather on the water below the burrows, and at a certain point, they all fly up to the nests, and the females fly out to sea to feed. I wish I'd seen that. But we did see three puffins, from quite close, and lots of rabbits (many of them black). At the summit we came to the ruined lookout tower. Beyond it we paused to eat our sandwiches by a geo - a long narrow inlet - and watched the swallows swooping back and forth along it.

On Sunday we set off along the coast, tracking every little inlet, venturing down the steps to the little harbour, crunching through an even thicher scattering of limpet shells, loitering to watch the seals, taking every opportunity to sit in the sun, seeing how the sea pinks on the rocks were almost - almost - in flower... We didn't get far in the morning, and had agreed that this time we would return to the South Light for lunch.

In the afternoon durham_rambler rambled off again, with a guided walk, while I stayed home and bathed, read, blogged, prepared for the evening's party.