Travelling at over seventy miles an hour the two sea rescue boats from Cardiff pounded over the surface of the water. The sea spray was numbing the passengers faces against the power of the resisting wind. The two boats bounced like skimming stones to the noise and power of the engines. The spray felt as sharp as hail stones at this speed. We were heading towards a small island, little more than a large rock with a sheer sided exterior, in the middle of the Bristol channel. The force of the wind pulled at our faces giving the same effect as a pilot under a G-force. Me and my sister exchanged a wordless glance. This wasn't in the brochure?!?
The boats had been hired to take us to Steepholm island and the passengers were your every day sight see'ers. This was not your average day trip, as we were to discover. The driver of our particular boat seemed to like his rock music. The speakers at the back of the boat blasted out the Bon Jovi song Living on a Prayer above the sound of the engine. The journey alone was a bracing and an enlivening experience. Couple that with some good rock music and your onto a winner!
My sister and I chose to go to Steepholm after our initial plan to visit Schomer fell through. We wanted to investigate some of the off shore islands none the less. The island of Steep holm is designated a nature reserve and has a fair amount of history behind it. The main interests for naturalists being the flora and the large gull colony with reference to a few other sea birds possible. Looking back I can say this place is without doubt one the strangest places, if not the strangest place I have ever been. Its strangeness does make my skin crawl. Its former past feels tangeable, clinging in the air, mysteriously unknown yet unnerving in its presence.
The island loomed ever closer, looking like a true fortress. Slowing down the boats one after the other docked beside a short portable metal platform that was wheeled into the water when we arrived. It was little more than some welded metal with a hand rail and thick plastic wheels but it did the job. We stepped onto land. Standing on large stones upwards the size of your fist that had been worn smooth by the sea. A worn path led from the beach winding up the vertical cliff face in front of us to an old world war two building that was now a cafe. At the top a second path led to the various circular routes around the island. As the group ascended the slopes and split off in various directions we noted the first strange thing about the island. On reaching the top we found blackberry bushes that were still in flower and the few fruits that were there, were still small and green. Not one blackberry, and this was the height of the season. Back on the mainland we had seen bushes laidened with fruit only a few days before this trip. It seemed this island was stunted and out of balance. The bushes dominated the island uncontrollably. We wondered amongst ourselves where all the pollinators were.
This islands appeal is a strange one. We met visitors who regularly came to the island time and time again for the tranquillity of the peace and solitude. A handful of gardeners tend to the island. They have their own story's and enjoy the nature of the place equally. Yet the island really is little more than a postage stamp and even a relaxed amble will allow you to see the whole island in no more than a couple of hours tops. The gardeners share their time with another oddity of this place. Muntjac deer roam Steepholm although I am unaware of how many. They themselves may so easily be clinging on to exsistance here under the circumstance of the size of the island. Even the deer are potentially genetically messed up! However despite the islands size they are still surprisingly hard to find.
Squelch! Uhhh! To this day I wish I would have worn something with a thicker soul than trainers as I can still feel in detail my foot squelching into the decaying, rain sodden body of a juvenile gull, not being careful enough to watch where I was stepping. We had chosen a time when the gull colony was near the end of breeding for that year. The begging youngsters could be found all over the island. Those that failed to make it due to adverse weather or so on littered the ground, dotted out across the island. A gull hung caught on a bramble bush. The wind can bring the smell of it's rotting flesh drifting if your in the right, or should I say wrong direction. Is this a testament to the reality of nature or has nature has forsaken this place, abandoning the fate of the inhabitance. This is what makes my skin crawl.
We found the carcases of gulls that had died from something else other than the rest. The way they had been eaten betrayed the presence of another species that clung out an exsistance on this rock. A pair of Peregrine's rule over this island. They terrorise their abundant food source. Its as if the peregrines scrape a living from this place. The carcases were eaten clean and chewed at the bone. Only the feet and the back end remained. We admired this top predator but failed to see them all day.
It was time to leave. We descended the slope and waited as the rescue boats returned, watching them grow closer. I sat down on the stones and watched the water ripple a little way in front of me. Even as we waited, just behind where I was sitting two dead juvenile gulls I had failed to notice on arrival lay slowly decaying at the foot of the cliff. There was no doubt in my mind....this DEFINITELY wasn't in the brochure.
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