Wednesday 28 May 2014

Row Porty At An Eathar Rowing Club's Mini Festival of Rowing - by Ali Grant

It gives me great pleasure to tell the tale of my recent return visit to Shawbost, Lewis. This is my version of events. I didn’t manage to squeeze absolutely everything in, because I want to save something for when I return in the future. Look out Shawbost, that’s all I can say!

MONDAY
My Lewis adventure got underway when I braved a spin over to Leven, in darkest Fife, to pick up the Shawbost skiff kit. I’d been swithering about taking my van over on the ferry but thought that if I did then I might as well arrive with a skiff. Although my van’s not big, I brought Jenny Skylark into the world the same way, so I know that if the sheets of ply are cut a certain way, then it all fits in…eventually. I’d dragged Row Porty’s Calum along for a bit of help and this turned out to be a shrewd idea when a timber lorry pitched up at Alec Jordan’s  looking for assistance to offload 2 pallets of wood. I’d recommend this one as a spectator sport. Far easier than doing the lifting :-)

With the kit loaded and the lorry unloaded, we headed to Alec J’s to see his latest form of transport – a massive equine beast by the name of Blackie! Seriously, the man has bought himself a horse and it’s a proper giant  – neigh joke!



                       
WEDNESDAY
After 2 sleepless nights worrying about my van disappearing, I awoke to find all was well. I had a lovely drive to Ullapool in mostly sunshine and was blessed with very few tractors, caravans or Sunday drivers sharing my road space. I arrived at Ullapool in good time and in blazing sunshine. Doesn’t the sun always shine in Ullapool? It struck me that the last time I saw this beach in daylight, it was covered in a brightly coloured carpet of skiffs and skiffers and resonated with the sound of cheering supporters. Today, it was calm and peaceful and I’m delighted to report that my ferry crossing was too.


                                                                              
THURSDAY
Thursday was the day I revealed all. Yes, I opened my van and let Shawbost see what a skiff kit actually looks like. There was no time to waste and we eagerly unloaded it, with some looking a bit perplexed that a glorified airfix kit could become a beautiful boat – and it will.
   


Hard work done, we got back to find the neighbours had arrived. A right scruffy bunch at that.



They weren’t for wasting any time either and no sooner had the boat arrived than in was making it way down to the beach to where it belongs, the sea. There was a few rows out to the reef line and back, but it was a lovely nite, so well worth it.




FRIDAY
Well, where will I start? We all gathered outside the community centre first thing in the morning and what a bonny bunch we were.



I’m going to call this day ‘Tricky Friday’ because we were presented with so many fantastic options that it was very tricky to choose between them. There was the choice of a tour round the Harris Tweed Mill with the charismatic Ian Mackay, a guided tour of the Arnol blackhouse by the very knowledgeable Angus Macleod, a tour of the Norse Mills by local expert Dr Finlay Macleod, or an escorted row around Bernera with Ian Macaulay senior. A tricky choice indeed. I have decided that 2014 will be my year of discovering new places in a skiff, so after much deliberation, I opted to go rowing. This would have meant that we missed out on the promise of a delicious lunch, but thanks to our thoughtful hosts, a giant picnic of goodies accompanied us.

Here is a report of the trip from King Plod (so called because he leads the Saturday plod trips) himself, Andres, who has clearly swallowed a few adjectives in the writing of this;
“We were able to row from Carloway over to Little Bernera, where we landed on a pristine white sandy beach in a lagoon of clear turquoise water. We were lucky to have one of the many Iain's on the Island to guide us with his wee 16' motor boat. We followed him to another white sandy beach called Bosta, navigating through a narrow gap between Great and Little Bernera islands, to arrive at the mouth of a little river which cuts through an Iron Age settlement.
We took 3 crews over making the 16klm journey twice on Friday taking advantage of the lack of any wind and a flat calm with a very gentle swell. As evening fell we managed a row around Craigeam island, a rocky outcrop right on the edge of the big open Atlantic.
The locals were fantastic, providing safety cover on the water, extra radios, charts, and recommendations of places we would have never found, or dared row!

Ice Breaker did about 40 km plods on Friday and the biggest risk came from sunburn! “

***Thanks, King Plod for that report and hopefully lover of all things ancient, Cathy Hooper will add a wee bit about the trip to the Norse Mill and the Arnol Blackhouse , maybe Jude will weave a tale about the Tweed Mill and who will enlighten us about fire engines and hose reels???? .***

By way of a sneak preview, I do know that at the blackhouse, Angus Macleod, recounted the tale of how he had been cured of the king’s evil by a 7th son with a sixpence and Dr Finlay Macleod, an expert in Norse Mills, told of mill stone wars in days gone by! Ouch! they’re heavy those things.

Meanwhile, back to the rowers who came off the water, overflowing with talk of white sands, turquoise seas and hairy caterpillars.



News reached us that there was some “soup left over from lunchtime” at the Community Hall where lovely ladies had been putting on a spread for the cultural half of our group. We may have expected the tail-end of a pot of soup, having already been treated to a picnic. Instead, we were treated to a gourmet sit down affair with neatly laid tables and served by smiling hostesses. The soup was perfect and as for the sandwiches, we’re not talking cheese and branston, more like cooked salmon and prawns and not a bit of sand in sight.  A nice change.



Lunch number 2 over and there was still action to be packed in. Ian Mackay decided that despite a row and bellies full of food, it would be possible to squeeze a bit of labour out of us and we headed off to cut some peat. The implement used to cut peat looks like a cross between a pick-axe, a sythe and …a golf club! I believe its official name is a tairsgear. Whatever its name is, it’s sharp and if you take your eyes off it for a second, you could easily part company with your foot.



                   
The peat is incredibly moist, so liberating a slab of it is easy peasy, but once cut, it’s heavy to lift and tricky to place on the ground in one piece. It’s quite hard work, but I was proud of the 6 that I cut. That would at least get a fire started eh? It’s free fuel, but a long process to get there. The slabs need to dry out, with different methods of stacking them favoured. When they dry, they shrink to about a quarter of the size, so the 6 I’d cut wouldn’t make much of a dent in the fuel pile.



                                                                                             
We left the peat sunning itself and headed off to explore the Norse Mill and Kilns with the Ian Mackay who has so many roles it’s a wonder he knows who he is. These Iron Age thatched roof constructions are all over. They are powered by water so were built where the water was and there is no shortage of it in Shawbost.



 
SATURDAY
After being blessed with sunshine, we woke up to a dry, but overcast day. A cloud of uncertainty was hanging over things because as we began to gather at the lochside, we were unsure how many people, or if indeed any, would turn up to experience the magic of skiffing for themselves. What happened in the hours that followed was just that – magic!  To kick off the magic, An Eathar got presented with a generous cheque to get their club underway.

We weren’t alone in the water, we had Ullapool and Stornoway for company and just as well. The visitors trickled in and a wave of interest built up from people all shapes, sizes and ages, but mostly called Ian and with surnames starting with Mc, Mac or simply M.



These sessions showed just how easily people can take to rowing as everyone picked it up pretty quickly. A cheer went up when our first 80 year old climbed in the boat. Calum Macdonald, rowed for the first time across the loch he’d looked out on for the best part of his life. There were boat-loads of tiny kids rowing next to their parents and boat-loads of tiny kids showing their parents how to do it. We had crazy races, with mixed up crews, battling their way across the loch to the sound of a cheering crowd. We had laughter and we had smiles. In total, Murdo reckoned we’d taken out at least 69 people.



                                 
All around, I heard snippets of conversations between people who knew each other, people who were meeting for the first time and people who were meeting pals they hadn’t seen for a while. And that, my friends is the magic of Scottish coastal rowing and the St Ayles skiff. Treasure it.

I’m quite certain we would have been rowing until dark, but a ceilidh was calling, so boats were put to bed and gladrags were put on.

Here’s a question. How many squeeze boxes can you squeeze into a ceilidh? There were loads, all of them beautifully played, by the Danns An Rathad and the Ness Melodian band. We heard from a young lad who sang with his guitar and several singers who sang unaccompanied and silenced the room.


I’ve always said that there’s nae talent in Porty (sorry guys!) and as a club we are definitely one shanty short of a shindig as we were unable to rustle up a song for our hosts. However, the day was saved by Topher from Ullapool’s daughter and one time member of Row Porty who bailed us out and squeezed her box in that lively way that only Amy Dawson does. Toes tapping, we decided to disgrace ourselves by re-interpreting some classic Scottish dances. I never get these things right and I wasn’t alone.

As the night drew to a close, I felt a tremendous sense of warmth. Perhaps that was due to the prize giving for the race winners who proudly received their trophies of a slab of local peat festooned in gold.



On the way home, there was a detour to check up on Uncle Alec and to keep him company as he enjoyed a whisky. It would have been rude not to. Murdo and Ian McTiger / MacTiger or maybe McArthur J  had found themselves a song book and insisted on making us listen to them. Whilst there, Uncle Alec scolded me for “putting him on the world wide web” following the blog of my last trip, so for those of you who missed that, here he is again!  




SUNDAY
Sunday in Shawbost was a very different experience to what we are used to. We had beautiful sunshine, crystal waters, a boat eager to explore….however, Sunday is a day of rest, even for boats.

The Western Isles is fiercely clinging onto its tradition of upholding the Sabbath. As a 24/7 city dweller, it’s easy to knock this, but people here work hard, juggling several jobs. One of my hosts, Ian Mackay for example, is a weaver, fireman, sheep farmer, tour guide and all round charmer… So, a day of enforced recovery and a bit of time to reflect seems no bad thing.

There were some casual conversations about attending the local church, partly to respect local tradition, but also to hear the Gaelic psalm singing. In the end, 14 of us pitched up and filled two rows.


For those unfamiliar with the Free Church, the buildings are quite sparse. I didn’t really spot any religious artefacts or adornments. The entire service is unaccompanied, with neither an organ or a church mouse anywhere in sight. I found it a quite a sombre affair, with hats worn and skirts long– and that was just the men. Hey, I’m joking!

The service was delivered by a man referred to on the Order of Service simply as ‘The Minister’ and all credit to him as he welcomed us in English and invited us to be at ease, which was a nice gesture.

‘The Minister’ was positioned high up. Beneath him were 4 austere looking gentlemen in suits, collar and tie, one of whom I was to learn was the precenter. This derives from the Latin meaning "the one who sings before" (thanks Wikipedia!). We were fortunate to experience the Gaelic psalm singing, because it is quite unique. The precenter puts out a line of the psalm in quite a warbling way and the congregation follow. However, they do so at different stages and with varying levels of harmony etc. All I can say is don’t try this at home because it must take practice and you’d clear the streets. The effect is a multi-layered, textured thing, which I found to be quite hypnotic and my toes were never tempted to tap. This type of singing started life as a call and response affair, probably as a result of literacy not being widespread in days gone by. Anyway, it was all part of the experience and I think that the friends we’d made over the previous days were pleased that we had joined them.

It was a beautiful day and we wanted to make good use of it so a plan of sorts was launched to climb, An Cliseam,  the highest mountain at 799m. Now, it’s a well known fact that cats can’t be herded and neither it seems can skiffers.  We left in a convoy of 3 (or was it 4 ?) cars, drove for a bit, spotted big black rain clouds over our mountain, decided to head to Harris instead. Then we discovered that we didn’t have enough fuel and would need to find some on a Sunday, then we got fuel, but discovered we’d lost the other cars. Then we decided to go and check out the Broch….are you following this?

The Broch was bathed in sunshine, so good call. Brochs, are made by concentric stone walls fastened together with galleries at different heights and interlinking staircases. So, in theory, they’re a bit like an iron age version of a tenement, which has really stood the test of time.



                                         
Leaving the tenement behind, we headed to a distillery for our Sunday lunch. Actually, it was a ruin of an illicit still which we stumbled upon on our coastal walk from Gearrannan to Dail Mor. We stopped to have a picnic and take in the views when we spotted some of our group who we’d tried to shake off in the car chase earlier and they joined us for what was a very idyllic afternoon. The cliffs and sheer drops make for an exhilarating and magnificent walk.



Time was running out for us in Shawbost, with the majority of the group having to think about heading home. Although we were scattered across the island, we made real attempts to do things together, or at least re-group. The final gesture to illustrate that was the household of Bill and his 3 quines, Margaret, MC and Barbara who hosted a get together to use up all their provisions. It was delicious.



As I said at the start, way back on Monday, this is my summary of the trip. Others will have grand stories of their own and I very much hope that they share them. It’s impossible to thank everybody individually without missing someone out, but here are a few mentions. Thank you Murdo for kicking this whole thing off. Thank you Andres for towing Ice Breaker and for leading the plod. Thank you Sean for buying dry trousers and standing all day in the water testing them out.  Thank you to everyone from Row Porty who came on this trip and made it special and thanks to Max and Murdo for capturing it in pictures.

Thank you Shawbosters for all the time and generosity you gave us, the effort you put in and the new knowledge and friendships we left with. Thank you for welcoming and getting entwined with us all. You have very good taste! :-)

Lastly, I’d like to thank my beautiful hosts, Annie, Ian and Bamber Mackay for everything from the minute I arrived to the minute I left - and for accepting defeat, so graciously, in the Portobello versus Stornoway black pudding challenge. Admit it, the Porty pudding rocked!

I asked Murdo how I should end this story and he said with a song. I have no idea what it means and it will possibly be the thing that gets me into trouble, but here it is. Gulp!






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