This trip had been a long time in the making, and to be honest, none of us seriously expected it to ever happen. It first sparked to life sometime in 2023 whilst dreaming up summer plans, most likely while in the pub with some extended confidence. Someone mentioned how Mingulay would be a cool place to go if we could gather enough people to hire the charter over. To everyone’s surprise, including herself, teenage skipper Meg Loftus told us there was no need for a charter and offered to sail us the next year on her boat, Kingfisher. Sometime later, early on the 22nd June 2024, we loaded up Kingfisher and set sail to Bishop Isles. I must warn you though, in this trip report there is a lot of sailing, and very little climbing.
Kingfisher actually started her journey in Ullapool, a few weeks prior. Meg, Charlie Banford and Milo Dixon had been getting her seaworthy. They left Ullapool down the Sound of Skye, sailed through a storm across the Minch, and anchored in Barra, ready to pick the remainder of us up a few days later. By all accounts they had a rough time of it, but I wasn’t there, so I asked Charlie to recount. He sent me a rather melodramatic essay - It may not seem like it, but I have shortened this:
“It was time to launch the boat. Tim first performed a one hundred point turn in a space I would have struggled to park in. He then carefully reversed the trailer into the sea, where the boat began to float. Large amounts of water immediately started spraying into the cabin. The pipe for the port side cockpit drain had cracked. Fortunately, I was down below and turned the seacock off before the boat sank. I wondered what else would break on the boat before we were back in Ullapool. Meg had warned me things often broke, but I hadn’t expected Kingfisher to start sinking immediately.”
“Upon retiring to our bed, the same one Milo was already in, we began to hear a quiet trickle coming from the floor. ‘I think the water tank’s leaking’, ‘oh dear’. We began ripping up the floorboards. This caused quite a lot of noise keeping poor Milo awake, Meg apologised to which he responded, ‘I knew what I was getting in for’. At least he was now up to speed with how things were going to be for the rest of the trip.”
“Meg went to bed, leaving us two fools in charge. We tacked. The Dyarchy travellers pulley snapped. Before she had even managed to close her eyes our skipper was dragged back out of bed to fix the boat, but fortunately with a shackle in place of the pulley we were soon on our way again. Milo and I continued to inexpertly sail all the way through the inner sound until we neared the Skye bridge. The wind had completely died, and the sea was still as a mirror. As we passed a trawler, a pod of dolphins jumped and played in our bow wave.”
“I fell asleep but was quickly bounced awake by the first rough sea I had experienced. I got up and put on my foul weather gear, then went to join Meg on deck, but couldn’t see her. Mr rope had been left at the helm as Meg was busy wrestling to put a reef in the mainsail. Something must be wrong, I thought. Quickly, I offered my assistance, but she sat down and then, entirely unflustered, asked what I was doing awake. This was the first and definitely not the last time I understood that Meg was in her element.”
“The second time I awoke, it was light, and we were sailing in a confused and sickening swell. Just putting on my gear made me queasy. I got on deck, and was immediately given the helm in the worst weather I had ever seen at sea, though this was admittedly only my second day. I was well and truly out of my depth. Meg fell straight to sleep. Milo chose this moment to come on deck and spray me with bile. He then went to lie on the cabin floor in an attempt to lose less of his dinner. This transpired to be a grave error as the larger the waves got the more the inanimate objects in the cabin grew vengeance and threw themselves at him with reckless abandon. First a book, then more stressfully an oil lamp and finally at the crescendo of the rough seas the table gave way and tried its best to chop him in half. I was scared. Meg was asleep.”
“ Finally we arrived in Vatersay bay and slept for an eternity. The next day we sailed out of the bay in much calmer conditions. Milo finally got to enjoy some engineless sailing. We had an excellent morning, but all too soon we were getting off the boat onto the pontoon at Castle bay, ready to meet our friends that evening.”
In the meantime, with a promising weather window on the table, the rest of us had been scrambling together life jackets, radios, a spare 100m ab-rope, as many rope protectors as we could muster, and a SIM for the sat phone. It was not a good sign that most of the party felt quite unwell during a rough ferry crossing from Oban to Barra, but we were rewarded by our first sight of Kingfisher in a drizzly Castlebay. Beautiful, but small for ten, I thought.
The next morning found us repeatedly failing to start the engine. Not off to a good start. There were three engineers on board, but it was the physicist who thought it a good idea to short the starter motor with a butter knife. To my surprise though, this proved to work quite well, and we were soon motoring out of Castlebay.
A few hours later, we anchored off Mingulay in the afternoon sun. We were greeted by hundreds of Seals lining the beach, making the process of unloading ten people and kit on a small rowing dinghy a bit harder. The seals bobbed around us as parties (mainly powered by Meg) rowed back and forth, dropping off Yummick and kit. A small tent village was erected on the hill by the old school house. Some afternoon fishing was had, but only Anna had any success.
Now on the island, we basked in the sun, elated shocked that we had actually made it. This was coupled with a feeling of isolation, especially as we watched Meg and Charlie leave on Kingfisher, disappearing into the Horizon. They were anchoring in Vatersay for the night, but famously reliable, we wondered if they would actually return.
That evening saw our first climbs on Mingulay, at a small nearby crag Milo’s parents had helped develop, Geo am Droma. We all made repeats of Milo’s mum’s route Fluorescent Jellyfish, 1* VD, and Milo squeezed in a new neighbouring route Fluorescent Adolescence, 0* HVD. Walking back through the diverse wildlife in the old village grounds, Noah Crossingham and I discussed feeling more settled and could appreciate what an incredible place it was that we were visiting.
The incredible wildlife of Mingulay
Returning late, the two of us bumped into a local NatureScot birdwatcher. A surprise given we thought we were the only people on the island. He gave us pointers on where to avoid during nesting season and offered us shelter should we need it. His residence, the old schoolhouse, certainly made the place feel less remote, but we were grateful to get a more detailed weather forecast, rather than text forecasts to the sat phone. Disappointingly though, the weather on his radar showed a very windy few days, ruling out most of the big objectives while we were there.
To be honest, I think most of us were somewhat relieved to not have to brave the 100m+ abseil of Dun-Mingulay straight away, but we were all keen to get a look at it. We walked the rack and ropes over the hill, and stached them for later. Turning the corner past Dun-Mingulay every single jaw dropped. Fog, wind and huge swell swept the whole place. It was spectacularly wild and imposing. A view of thousands of birds soaring, hunting, nesting and battling the winds is quite something. We sat and watched for a while, before our silly little urge to climb took over again.
Turning back to Seal Song Geo, we encountered some friendly Skua dive-bombing and had to make a detour to the crag. Unfortunately, Fulmars had claimed the geo for themselves, so we moved on to cragging at Gerium Walls. Bird-free, we climbed until late but left feeling a little frustrated. The setting was great, but nesting and weather were causing some issues - we craved something a little more adventurous. Noah and I did have a very adventurous return to camp, mostly brought about by laziness. We thought it would be quicker to skirt the edge of the island instead of walking back over the hill that dominated the centre. Instead, we ended up wading through chest high grass and scrambling through small geos. This took quite a lot of time and effort, but it we made it back, and with a better idea of the island geography!
Dinner brought about more weather discussion. It had worsened again. The following morning was to be glorious sunshine, but soon depreciating into force nine winds the following day. We thought it sensible to get off Mingulay sooner rather than later. By some miracle, Meg and Charlie actually answered our call and started their return to the island that evening.
Already at our final morning on Mingulay, we were keen to get something bigger in. The NatureScot birdwatcher, who was also departing, had told us Arnamul Wall might be free of birds, so we speculatively walked across the island in that direction. We couldn’t actually see any of the crag from the top, and a 70m abseil made it difficult to communicate whether it was climbable. By the time I got down to the base, it was obvious that a variety of birds were on the left side of the crag, where all the guidebook routes are.
Luckily, there was some doable looking terrain about the abseil line, where our guidebook didn’t have routes. Noah and I scouted a possible line and apprehensively quested into the unknown. A very adventurous feeling, but slightly terrifying - it looked to be anywhere between VS and E3. Luckily for me, Noah is a bit of a weapon, and confidently made his way up 40m of surprisingly manageable HVS/E1 terrain. I had a similarly long and wondering pitch, with some iffy gear. Noah took us to the top with a short pull through a small roof. We chose to name the route ‘Arnamul Egg’, a 1 star HVS 5a, named after a small egg we found at the base of the route - I might add, there were no birds, protected or not, disturbed on this endeavour, and this egg was abandoned.
Feeling chuffed with ourselves, we bickered with Dan, Anna and Robbie, who were claiming a two star E1 5b ’Super Special Seal Event’. A good name, I’d give them that, but two stars for their first first-ascent, I was jealous. Charlie, Lottie and Meg followed them and immediately downgraded it to HVS. UKC was the real winner though - as soon as we got signal, Robbie announced their route shared a word-for-word description of ‘There’s Nuffin Like a Puffin’, E1 5b. We think ours too was most likely a loose variant of an E2 5b named Puffin Protest. Oh well, we got the adventure we were looking for.
We had forgotten all about the climbing once loading the boat back up. Bright blue skies, a picturesque beach, naked diving off the boat, swimming with seals, and beers wait for us. The sea stayed still that evening, and we motored into the sunset, eating curry, singing, dancing, and already reminiscing.
Dancing all the way home!
Safely back in Castlebay, Meg, Charlie, Robbie and I had some (unemployed) time on our hands so joined in returning Kingfisher to Ullapool. Leaving the bay the next morning, we immediately had our first emergency-butter-knife-engine-start to dodge some underwater rocks. Pointing East to Canna, we had a choppy ride few hours, before mooring amongst many million pounds of yacht. The atmosphere was getting eerie. Rum loomed above us, the skies were darker and the wind much warmer. We were glad to be sitting out the weather we had left Mingulay for.
It’s remarkable how much of your food supply you can go through with nothing else to do. Most of our entertainment came from eating, drinking tea, reading heavy weather sailing and watching others hopelessly attempt to launch their tenders. By mid-afternoon, some 36 hours after we got there, news came through that the wind had dropped to force 6 westerly. Robbie and I agreed that this sounded high, but Meg said that it would be good sailing, so we got the dinky-donk going and waved goodbye. Our neighbours chuckled back at us, clearly content in staying for longer. Charlie labelled them soft, and we set sail for Iona.
When I first got on Kingfisher, Charlie described his experience of sailing as long periods of boredom interspersed with extreme panic. I learnt the meaning of this when Robbie was winching in one of the jib sheets. I watched as a huge bang snapped the sheet in two, followed by a ‘well that’s not supposed to happen’ and four aghast faces. All of a sudden the tender started to work itself free, the waves seemed bigger, and Rum was growing in size. I would like to say we dealt with this ordeal calmly and methodically, but I think it was mostly panic, use of the butter-knife, and a lot of holding on to a mess of tangling rope and spirits.
The next couple of hours were incredibly fun. We were bouncing and crashing over waves at a steady 6 knots. It was the first time Robbie and I had the novel experience of being fully heeled over for hours on end. This wasn’t to last, however, when the triatic stay managed to unscrew itself. Unlike last time though, Meg calmly exited the cabin, climbed onto the rigging and screwed it back together. She described this simply, as ‘a bit gnarly’.
Later, for all my hard work in keeping the crew calm, I rewarded myself with a nap. This was a mistake. I woke up to a kiss from the cabin floor, feeling quite unwell. Rushing on deck, I cured my seasickness, and was treated to the sight of Gometra, an island off an island off Mull. We anchored for the night and climbed a new route, ‘Spew on the Deck’, HVS 5a, no stars. We didn’t bother with another. It had started to rain. And the rock was crap.
The rest of the day was spent sailing to Iona, with Dolphins playing on the bow wave. We cautiously navigated into Tinker’s hole and went to bed. This gave us time in the morning for some idyllic soloing on Erraid, and more swimming in the sunny alcove. To the tune of Pirates of the Caribbean, we returned Robbie to Oban before spending the evening with some Enthusiastic Norwegians. Turns out Kingfisher is quite the people pleaser.
Charlie, Meg and I spent the entire next day attempting to tack up the sound of Mull. Before we knew it, it was 2am, and we were dealing with the usual stress of Meg’s magnetic boat. Meg was at the top of the foremost trying to fix the jib halyard block. It had broken quite dramatically when the wind had died in the middle of the night, and we were handing the jib. It proved too difficult to fix on the go, so we motored all the way to Balamory. We acquired the appropriate part and Meg fixed it the next day with the use of a belay up the mast.
It was now afternoon on the 2nd July. Charlie and I wanted to vote in the general election in Edinburgh on the 4th. Time had got away from us, and we agreed to sail the 120 odd nautical miles through the night, something I was quite excited to try. With the wind behind us, we were flying, even reaching eight knots at one point! We worked on one, changing to two, hour-long watches and clocked in the rainy miles with very few hiccups. This night all felt very surreal. I am still at a loss as to how I ended up at the helm of a 30ft sailboat at 3am in the pouring rain, with my knowledgeable friends asleep, and having never sailed a couple of weeks prior.
There was only one point of concern that night, when I woke to the whip of the jibing boom, followed nervous laughter from Meg and Charlie. I decided my sleep was worth more than to enquire, but afterwards learnt we had nearly crashed into the Skye bridge by Kyle of Lochalsh.
That evening, we pulled into Ullapool and devoured the fish and chips we had been dreaming about. The end of a rather fantastic adventure.