A misty day in the Scilly Isles

What a surprise! When we got up this morning we knew we were close to land – but it was completely obscured by heavy mist. Indeed the authorities, who clearly had experienced this before, told us that under such conditions their regulations were that we could not use our PolarCircleBoats to ferry people ashore. They wanted to have a minimum of traffic. Instead we had to use their tender boats – the largest of which took 90 passengers.

Steffi Wiegand

Steffi Wiegand

Gradually the mist lifted, and we could see that we were anchored in quiet water with low-lying islands of various sizes all around us. Most of us went ashore either on Tresco Island with its remarkable botanical gardens or took the Garrison walking tour on St. Mary’s Island. Both islands were very charming, and we realized from the number of places to sleep that tourism is the major source of income. The number of persons staying overnight is many times larger than the permanent population of around 2000 persons.

FriedaPhoto

FriedaPhoto

FriedaPhoto

Tresco Island is owned by a single family, who decided to establish the gardens many decades ago, by importing plants and trees from all over the world. It now took seven gardeners working full time to look after this enormous number of exotic plants. But it was not only the flora that was colourful; we were surprised to meet quite tame-appearing Golden Pheasants, originally imported from China.

FriedaPhoto

FriedaPhoto

FriedaPhoto

Whether returning from this island or from St. Mary’s, we were surprised to see intense rowing in boats manned by eight oarsmen. These relatively wide boats are called “gigs”, and they were warming up for the world Gig rowing championship, held annually always at the Scilly Islands. Competitors came from all over the world, this year there were more than 100 participants. Unfortunately the racing did not start until earnest the next day, so we had to leave without experiencing that particular event.

Steffi Wiegand

Steffi Wiegand