Day 14 Isle of Staffa and Isle of Iona

The Isle of Staffa is a mini-island known for two things, a huge Puffin colony and hexagonal basalt volcanic columns.  This volcanic anomaly is also seen in Antrim, Northern Ireland.  It starts there and ends here, or the other way around.  It is known as “The Giants Causeway” in Ireland, we saw it two years ago.  An interesting Google search for you if you are interested in why they call it that.

The boat ride out to Staffa.  Rough seas, kids were throwing up.

Fingal's cave.  Amazing geology.

One of the passengers looked a bit different then the rest of us.
Dressed a bit like a Druid.  Nice guy, but different!
Anyway, when we got to the cave he headed on in and sat down
and sang for quite a while.   Kinda creepy, but also
very interesting and he was a good singer.  A great memory.

As you can see from all our pictures today, it was raining, hard.  And windy.  But that didn’t stop us, the tourists, or Puffins.  So many people visit the Puffin colony, they are unafraid of us.  Many of these birds were just a few feet away.  Amazing to watch.  They handled the rain and wind better than we did.  Unfortunately, because of the weather, only a few of our pictures turned out.  We couldn’t keep the lenses dry.  Timing, though, was great, they leave in three weeks for the rest of the year at sea.

The Isle of Iona is a short, 15-minute ferry ride from Mull.  Some real history here.  St. Columba set sail from Ireland in 563 to build an abbey and Christianize Scotland.  A powerful force for good in Ireland.  Unfortunately, the Vikings kept raiding the island for the gold and silver accoutrements of worship, so eventually the monastery had to be abandoned.  But not before the Book of Kells was transcribed there, (The four gospels in Latin).  Trinity College’s prize, in Dublin which we saw two years ago.

Eventually the Vikings became Christian and left the monastery alone.  The monks returned to continue to do what monks do in the Middle Ages.  All went well until the Reformation in 1517 when it was destroyed again.  Abandoned for four centuries, finally, in the early 1900’s a group of concerned Scot’s bought the place and have been rebuilding it ever since.  

Now, it is a retreat center and home of the “Iona Community”, a group committed to living out the Christian faith through, among other means, hospitality, diversity, worship, social justice, human rights, gender justice, environmental stewardship, healing and reconciliation.  What a diversity of expression of faith in 1,500 years.

 

The Town of Iona