Little Skellig

I was happy that we were on our way back to mainland, but the trip back isn’t so easy. The seas were rough and we need to make sure we get back in one piece. It was holding on to the boat as it speeds its way back to port when I heard the engine turn down. From my seat, I can see why. We were going to have a closer look at the other Skellig Island – Little Skellig. The island looks rougher than Skellig Michael, also called Greater Skellig. There seemed to be very little vegetation on the island and there were no flat areas where humans can set up camp. I can imagine that Skellig Michael probably looked like when the first monks came.

From far away, one can already see that there was something different about the island. Little Skellig looks like it has a lot of white stuff on it. At first I thought it could be snow, but that was extremely unlikely. As we got closer, I heard a lot of noises, like a lot of birds. As it turns out, the white stuff were actually birds – lots of them. The birds, specifically, gannets. Number around 70,000 making it the second largest gannet colony in the world. There was an incredible number of them. It was also amazing that they all decided to nest in the same island. It was like they took this island for themselves, while left Skellig Michael for the puffins. We only lingered a while beside the island. It was surprisingly calmer here and we were able to get some photos. Although we didn’t get to land on the island, I was glad we got to take a closer look at it.

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