Day 8 & 9

Day 8 (18 April)

A mild day with hardly any wind or rain, no sun either. In the attic bedroom, I now have enough space for myself to roll out the yoga mat and do some sun greetings and other asanas. Good to stretch out and get ready for the day.

We take shifts at breakfast because there is not enough space for all the five of us, but also because everyone has different rhythms and habits anyway. Then the walkers set off towards the bird centre. As I am cycling, I have a bit more leisure.

At the centre, it is very noisy: the guillemots have come in to sit on the rocks! There are also razorbills and puffins. The guillemots have replaced the kittiwakes, that have all but disappeared. We see some groups sitting on the sea surface. Later in the day, Rick attempts an estimate of the number of (visible) guillemots: at least 10,000! He thinks there is probably double the number as they are probably also on the other sides of the cliffs, where we can’t see them.

The day is busy with visitors too. A big group arrives on the first bus that comes up from the ferry. That makes it very busy for the person at the till, who has to sell them the entry tickets. Today that is Rick. He uses the radio to ask one of us down at the lighthouse to come up quickly to help out. So I rush up the steps as fast as I can without appearing too breathless when I arrive. When everyone has gone through, it becomes quiet again. Julia, a volunteer who lives on the island, comes in to help out at the visitor centre and I can get back down to the platform.

During the day we take turns at the platform and the bottom of the lighthouse. The sun comes out for a bit and it is quite pleasant there. James sights another couple of porpoises, and later I see a seal there. The visitors all enjoy the birds, and especially of course the puffins. There are quite a few of those around, popping in and out of their burrows.

All in all, it’s another lovely day at the lighthouse. 

When the last visitors have left, I sit in the kitchen of the lighthouse to send out my blog. Then the radio crackles and Alison asks me whether I would be willing to let a late visitor in, who had walked up, not realising that the visitor centre closes at four. So I open the doors once more to let her have a quick view. And she is lucky too: the peregrine which hasn’t been seen all day, suddenly appears on its regular patch, so I get a telescope out to show it to her. Then finally, the working day is at its end. I walk up after her and close the gates. 

There are quite a few keys we have to use every day to open all the gates and doors, as well as the cabinets with the videos in the exhibition rooms in the lighthouse. Upstairs, there are more keys to open and close the sliding doors of the visitor centre. Another thing that has a key is the vending machine. Finally, there is a so-called allen key to open the big black bins outside that take the remains of visitors’ picknicks. I decided to clean out one of those on Easter Sunday. It was overflowing and all the rubbish had to be collected and put into another rubbish bag. Quite unspeakable contents :-$

After locking up and walking home, we all cook or heat up previously cooked dinners, and sit around and talk, especially about Brexit and what it will mean for Northern Ireland. James, Penny and Wendy all are local people from the Northern Irish mainland. They say that due to the thirty years of Troubles that they have behind them and the Good Friday Agreement that ended that, hardly anyone can imagine a ‘hard border’ coming back between the North and the South, but it’s hard to figure out what else would happen. Wendy suggests taking refuge on Rathlin and claim asylum.

Day 9 (19 April)

The day starts with a drizzle. When that more or less disappears, I practice kata in the frontyard. Then breakfast and off to the centre. James goes down to open the gates to the lighthouse area, but comes rushing back up to tell us there are dolphins! We all drop everything we are doing and rush out to the platform outside the visitor centre with our binoculors. There they are, several groups of them moving towards the harbour doing their curved, diving swim. According to James, they are bottlenosed dolphins, maybe 3 dozen in total. Lovely!

Rick and Hazel are off and so is Wendy. Una, the Volunteer Experience Officer living on the island, comes in. The day at the centre unfolds as usual, busloads of visitors arriving and coming down to see the birds. Quite a few families with children that are keen birdwatchers and stay for a long time to look at all the birds with their binoculars. Some boys show me their trick of taking pictures with their I-phones of the image of puffins in the telescope.  

James leaves us and the rest of goes go back to our cottage, for tea, food, chats etc.

In the evening, I do a bit of running with Matt.