Posted by | Posted in Uncategorized | Posted on 11-01-2010
‘Lilac bin bags you should live somewhere posh.” Colin the boatman eyed the bags, thanks to Oxford town council, that sealed my supplies for the journey across to Bardsey Island.
I’d followed the pre-trip instructions to the letter, including the watertight bin bags and the foreboding recommendation to “bring more food than is necessary for a week, as often the weather may stop the ship from crossing”. Allegedly, rough weather can suggest up to a 3rd of ship trips over the infamously untrustworthy Bardsey Sound don’t run. My crossing did happen but just because the vet and a local farmer wanted to reach Bardsey Ynys Enlli in Welsh which lies off the far end of the Llyn spur in north-west Wales. The regular service for day trippers had been canned. So, grabbing my bottle of wine to my chest ( it was my only company for the stay, and so wanted to survive the journey intact ), I bumped over the rough seas for the 20-minute crossing, watching the seabirds dive-bombing into the waves.
My wine and I arrived safely, and we were welcomed by a proud Welsh dragon flapping from the flagstaff at Bardsey’s little harbor.
Emyr Roberts, Bardsey’s warden, helped unload my baggage and food supplies onto a tractor, and we bumped again along the island’s only track to my home, set beside the chapel and overlooking the ruins of the 13th-century Augustinian abbey of St Mary’s. For Bardsey is a holy island, a place of pilgrimage since Celtic times. 3 journeys here, it was recounted, equalled one to Rome. Legend has it that twenty thousand saints are buried here, so I wasn’t to be alone after all. As I settled into my place, Ty Capel, Emyr explained the agreements. There is not any electricity on the island, and no mains drainage, so all washing is done by hand, and the john is a composting one in the outhouse. Hotels in manchester are near bardsey
Shockingly for such a humid, water-bound place, water is limited, with just a couple of tiny springs to supply the homes, so all waste water is reused in the pretty, shrub-lined garden where I could also pick herbs to flavor my meals. Front doors are left unlocked, so there are no keys to lose. Bardsey itself is miniscule : 2 miles long, and less than a mile wide, it’s a sliver of land with one round hill, postponed between huge sea and vaster sky. It is nearer to Eire than to Britain , was a paradise for pirates after the decline of the abbey, and has its allocated share of tales of wreckers and Whisky Galore-type nonsense. It’s also a hotspot for migrant birds, with an observatory established here in 1953, and since 1979 it’s been owned by the Bardsey Island Trust, which intends to manage it as a living community instead of as a nature reserve, like many of its neighbours.
Even so, there are few human residents left here now. Colin the boatman is also the lighthouse keeper. There is a poet and her farmer hubby, who is also the island’s postman. Then there are the bird observatory staff, and a family who gave up life on the mainland to farm here, whose teens study from home and travel over the sound to take their examinations.
And everybody doubles up as a fisherman. There also are semi-permanent residents such as Carole Sherman, an artist who spends her summers running courses and manufacturing work to be exhibited on the mainland. Colin, boy of the aforementioned poet and postman, was brought up on Bardsey and recollects the liberty he experienced as a kid, growing up with no fear of speeding autos or strangers. And, says Colin, Bardsey’s an excellent place for family vacations these days too, for the same reasons. It’s also good for birds, as there are no natural predators ( moggies aren’t permitted ) and the ecosystem has stayed nearly unvaried for decades. For Bardsey is more outlined by what it lacks than by what it has and this is its appeal. No Televisions or radios, music or muzak. No toasters, microwaves or litter. No roads, no autos, no shops, no crowded beaches ( in truth, no beaches at all ). No pylons, telephone lines, satellite dishes or mobile telephone masts. Not even, fortunately, many of us. Just thousands of seabirds, wild flowers and more than 430 species of lichen or so I am told. The sole shop sells some hand-crafted island crafts, and there’s a truth box for your purchases like the unlocked front doors, an old fashioned reminder of a mostly disappeared world.
Initially I was worried I would be bored here. It takes only two hours to explore the island from end to finish, so I did that. Then I listened to the oystercatchers, observed the seals luxuriating on the rocky shore, breathed in the smell of the bracken, heard the bleat of lambs carried on the wind that ripples thru the wild flowers of the meadows.
Yes, there is zip to do here so I did nothing, and that was delightful. As the evenings drew in, I lit the candles and the gas lamp, which hissed companionably as I settled down with the books I had been meaning to read for ages but somehow hadn’t found the time. Then I slipped asleep to the roar of the waves and the weird cries of Manx shearwaters, heard only in the nighttime, sounding all of the world like the crow of magicians on broomsticks zipping over my roof.
And I slept well during nights as black as ink, with only the distant, sweeping beam of the lighthouse punctuating the darkness. One evening I went out to watch the nightfall. Wales is only 2 miles away over the sound but as I stood on the end of the island taking a look at the blue tops of Snowdonia, the mainland seemed like another world. And, stuck on my tiny island heaven, waiting for the ship that can never come, I realized I could not leave even if I wished to.
Bardsey might not be the end of the world, but it actually feels like it.


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