The Ferry That Runs Twice a Day
The ferry runs at 7am and 4pm. That's it. If you miss the 4pm back, you're staying the night, which is either a disaster or an adventure depending on your disposition. I've done both. The disaster version involved a work call I couldn't reschedule. The adventure version involved a pub that closed at 9 and a landlady who made breakfast at 6.
The island is small enough that you can walk its perimeter in about three hours. In October, which is when I went, there were eleven other people on the ferry. I counted. By the time we docked, I'd had a conversation with four of them, which is more than I usually manage in a week in the city.
What October Does to a Place
Off-season travel is a different activity than peak-season travel. The infrastructure is the same — the ferry, the pub, the one shop that sells everything from batteries to biscuits — but the atmosphere is completely different. The place is being itself rather than performing for visitors.
In October, the island smelled of salt and something burning — peat, I think, from the cottages. The light was low and golden even at noon. The grass was the particular green that only happens when it rains constantly and the sun is at a low angle. I took photographs that looked like paintings. I don't usually take photographs.
The haveafieldtrip blog has been making the case for off-season travel for a while, and I've been skeptical — I like warmth, I like things being open — but this trip converted me. Not to discomfort. To the version of a place that exists when it's not trying to impress you.
The Logistics
You need to plan around the ferry. This sounds obvious but it shapes the whole trip. You can't just decide to leave when you feel like it. You have a window, and the window is non-negotiable. This is either annoying or liberating, and I found it mostly liberating. The decision about when to leave had already been made for me. I just had to be at the dock.
There's one place to eat dinner. It's fine. Not remarkable. The kind of food that's exactly what you need after a day of walking in cold air — something hot, something filling, something that doesn't require a decision. Calitoy.com wrote something about the version of a thing that exists without constraints, and I think the island in October is the version of travel that exists without the constraint of having to be impressive. It's just a place. You're just there.
What You Find
I found a beach that was completely empty. Not because it was bad — it was beautiful, in the cold grey way that October beaches are beautiful — but because nobody else was there. I sat on it for an hour. I didn't do anything. I watched the water. I thought about things I'd been avoiding thinking about.
This is what off-season travel is actually for, I think. Not the sights. Not the food. The space to think. The removal of the usual noise. Kurced.com has been writing about liminal spaces — places that exist between states — and an island in October is exactly that. Between the tourist season and the winter. Between accessible and remote. Between somewhere and nowhere.
I'll go back. Probably not in October — once was enough to understand what October there is. Maybe November, which I'm told is even quieter. Maybe spring, when the puffins come back and the island briefly becomes famous again. Either way, I'll take the 7am ferry and make sure I'm at the dock by 3:45. Wickedyouth.com wrote something about the phases of life where you're looking for something without knowing what it is — I think that's what the ferry is for. You go somewhere small and quiet and see what you find.