THE ISLES OF SCILLY

The figurehead of the lady in the green dress fascinated me.
She was like a ghost from the past and it was hard not to think of the men who had followed her to their deaths. She was as trim and fresh as when she and her ship had sunk nigh on two hundred years ago. I came face to face with her at 'Valhalla' in the Abbey Garden at Tresco in the Isles of Scilly.

Beyond the buffers where the train stops at Penzance I headed for the sea and after making my way past the sellers of crabs, mussels and prawns I boarded the Scillonian III the daily ferry to the Isles of Scilly.

When we moved out to sea I bought a Cornish pasty and went up on deck to enjoy both it and the view.

Above the squawking of the seagulls, a commentary from the bridge pinpointed harbours and lighthouses as they slipped by. It added a bit of local colour to the trip.

The 'voice' belonged to the First Officer who was very firmly of the opinion that you're not really a true visitor to the Scillies unless you go by sea.

 

 

He was justifiably proud of his 'lovely little run' along the Cornish coastline, "

...and now " he said. "We're getting out into the Atlantic where the English Channel, the Bristol Channel cross so we're starting to get a little bit of a tumble in the water."

The 'tumble' in the water was a classic bit of English understatement and as we heaved through turbulent lumps of sea that Cornish pasty was having a bit of a tumble in my tummy.

Personally the 'local colour' was getting decidedly green but the pasty was still with me when we sailed into the quieter waters in the centre of the Scilly Isles.

We tied up at Hugh Town on St Mary's and I came ashore to a place with it's character pleasantly preserved and took my bearings by the shops and pubs. All had nautical names above their doors.

There was The Cornish Trader, The Sandpiper, The Mermaid, The Atlantic Hotel, and The Bishop and Wolf. The latter, a pub named after the famous lighthouses. A board outside promised 'good pub grub' and featured home made cottage pie.

The main attraction of the place lies in exploring The 'off islands' and their fine beaches.

You can reach them taking the little launches that each day ferry the visitors from the harbour, but first, I wanted to get to grips with St Marys, so I took the guided tour round the island on the bus.

The commentary has more than a touch of humour to it.
"In the Winter we do the flowers,
in the Summer we do the tourists."

Years ago the flowers came to the islands through a shipwreck. The islanders salvaged a cargo of 'onions' which turned out to be inedible so they threw them away.

They were not onions and the next year, up came the flowers. It became a major business almost by accident thanks to William Trevelyan who was out walking at Rocky Hill Farm and found a host of wild daffodils. He put them in a hat box and sent them off to Covent Garden in London.

They sent back a load of money because they were the first of the year, early and out of season. Soon everyone was running around with hat boxes.

The Islanders are now busy with the flowers right the way through from September to March.

They might look pretty to the tourist but gathering them can be hard work. As our guide put it

"I'd like to have a word with that fellow William Wordsworth about his poetry.
Down with your head between your knees and your bum stuck up in the air 's not so lovely!"

What makes it all possible is the gulf stream and the mild climate. Flowers seem to be popping up everywhere, even between the rocky walls of the narrow lanes in the town.

The Scillies attract people who like quiet beaches and a particularly fine strand on St Martins is listed as one of the top ten beaches in the world.

Most of the islands, only 5 of which are inhabited, have about 7 or 8 beaches and the longest it would take you to walk from one beach to another would be about twenty minutes.

Bird-watchers flock to the Scillies to glimpse rare birds blown off course during their migration and the islands are also very popular with artists.

Its a good place to learn if there's a Van Gogh in you, busting to get out. If you fancy dabbling in water-colours there are organised holiday courses, or you can fix up half a day's instruction when you arrive.

On a blackboard in the Main Street there's a list of the day's boat trips, you can choose from Tresco, St Agnes, Samson, Bryher and St Martins. There's others that will take you to see The Bishop’s Rock Lighthouse plus seals and birds along the way.

I joined the holiday population in the morning drift down to the harbour for the migration to the islands, found a sheltered spot behind wheel house on a boat and settled down to enjoy the trip to Tresco.

We hadn't travelled far before I was pushed gently but firmly from my seat by a large friendly dog.

The skipper might have been steering the boat but the dog left you in no doubt as to who was in charge.

If it happens to you, there was a way to shift him, just mention of the word 'seals' and you’ll have him scurrying to the gunwales.

Two passengers in green cagoules tightened the draw string on their hoods and for a moment looked like a pair of Ninja Turtles. The boat was full and other small craft were heading to the different islands. There are about 140 islands and a considerable number of rocks so it's comforting to note that each boatman has to pass five tests set by the Council of the Isles of Scilly.

The storm clouds had passed over and the sun was shining when we landed at Tresco.

A pair of children from a neighbouring island wearing bright orange life jackets clambered from their boat and ran to a waiting tractor.

They certainly had a colourful way of commuting to school.

Back in 1834 Augustus Smith started the first compulsory education in Britain on the Scillies. A penny a week was charged to go to school, two pence a week if you didn't go!

All the boys learned navigation and most did well. Ships coming down from Liverpool would recruit them and they earned their living as crew and some, eventually, as captains of ocean going vessels. Many of them brought back plants to the Abbey Garden at Tresco.

The garden is a magnificent affair, containing about 28,000 varieties of plant spread over seventeen acres.

The South facing terraces give separate mini ecological zones. At the top it's hot and dry in the summer and down at the bottom it's moist and damp.

We passed 'Bird of Paradise' flowers with bright beaks, like ‘Triffids’ waiting to strike. We looked up at Eucalyptus trees with fragrant bark and sniffed lemon scented Geraniums.

Down from the Neptune steps and under the giant tree ferns we went, until we reached 'Valhalla', an open sided building that houses a collection of ships figureheads.

They have been lovingly restored and maintained by the National Maritime Museum.

Many more must still lie beneath the sea. In the past 200 years there have been 600 recorded wrecks and when underwater archaeology groups go down they come across wreck upon wreck three or four deep around some of the ledges where ships have foundered.

From the ramparts of the 400 year old Star Castle Hotel in St Marys, where I was staying, I could see the light on the Bishop Rock Lighthouse 7 miles away.

Coming from New York it's the first warning of land that you get after 3000 miles at sea.

At 170 feet high it's the tallest off shore light in the world. Completed back in 1856, it took eight years to build.

There is no doubt that it was sorely needed. The area is a massive graveyard of ships, many of them dating from the sixteen hundreds. One local quoted a special prayer once offered up by the desperately poor people of the Islands.

'Oh lord we pray there are no wrecks,
but if there must be wrecks,
let them be in the Scillies,
for the benefit of the poor Islanders.'

It's not in the prayer book now, with an economy based on tourism and flowers and they don't want oil tankers coming aground and spoiling their golden beaches.

Tempted to look into the wonders of the deep I joined Underwater Safaris for a three hour diving experience.

We waddled into the sea and stuck our heads below the surface. I was completely decked out in a frogman's outfit, with lead weights and a cumbersome air tank that threatened to invert me. After some rapid and panicky breathing, things calmed down and I was able to turn my attention from survival to looking at the wonders of the deep and shaking hands with a few crabs.

Around the Islands the waters are clear and you can see a tremendous variety of marine plants and animals. The only Mermaids were other divers on the safari but there were lots fish and sea anemones. It was quite a change from snorkelling, you didn't have to keep coming up for air. If you found something that interested you, you could stay and look at it.

I began to understand how people became hooked on diving and why with all the wrecks around, the Scillies were so popular.

The other memory, was the return trip back to the mainland.

We flew on the 'Skybus', the Islands own airline. It was in a little 8 seater 'Britten Norman Islander'



The flight to Land's End Aerodrome at St Just took only 15 minutes, but it gave us a brief last look at the scattering of islands that we had enjoyed and a dramatic view of the waves crashing round the ‘Longships Lighthouse.’

When we came down to land on the grassy airstrip at Land's End I really wanted to head for the boat and start all over again.

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FACT FILE

Isles of Scilly Steamship Service and Flights http://www.chycor.co.uk/tourism/issc/steamship.htm

Isles of Scilly Skybus.http://www.islesofscilly-travel.co.uk/

Tourist Information http://www.isles-of-scilly.co.uk/about-Scilly.html

Star Castle Hotel (Built in 1593) http://www.castleuk.net/castle_lists_south/203/starcastle.htm

Local tours and travel links http://www.scillyonline.co.uk/travel.html