The original aim of my expedition to Rockall,
250 miles off the Outer Hebrides in the
North Atlantic,
was to land and stay for 60 days, setting two new occupation records and in
doing so, raise funds for Help for Heroes. Due to the economic climate
resulting in a lack of funding, the main expedition was postponed in March this
year. However, at the end of May, I set off on a reconnaissance mission,
renamed The Rockall Jubilee Expedition as it co-incided with the Queen’s
Jubilee celebrations. This is how I got on:
The expedition did not get off to an ideal start. At midday
on Thursday 31
st May we were loaded and ready to depart on
Kilda Cruises’ new catamaran Orca 3, when final checks revealed oil in the engine
cooling water. After several fretful phone calls, a rendezvous was arranged
between the boat from Harris, the engineer from Inverness and the required
spare part from Glasgow, in Uig on Skye. Fourteen hours of sleeping, eating and
eagle watching passed slowly, before we finally got back on the boat and left
Leverburgh for Rockall at 0230 on the Friday morning.
Fortunately, I awoke as we passed to the South of St Kilda
and at 0600 I took a few pictures of the sunrise behind the archipelago. Angus
Smith, the skipper, pointed out that from there on it was just blue skies and
blue seas for at least another six hours, so I decided to head back to my berth!
More sleep followed; on wakening, a hearty breakfast of bananas and bacon
sandwiches awaited and seeing as sea sickness was absent I tucked in. Most of
the rest of the day was then spent looking at the horizon, recording thoughts
with the BBC and spotting various sea birds and the odd dolphin. There’s not
much to look at after St. Kilda!
Finally, we sighted Rockall at about 1430 hours from seven miles out, after a
twelve hour cruise. It still look another half an hour to draw close, during
which time I donned my
Safequip dry suit and PFD and made sure that dry bags,
flag poles, whisky casks, etc. were all in place for a swift transition to the
tender and then onto the rock.
Once we were close enough, about 100 metres away, and after having motored
around the rock to recce for landing spots in the swell, the RIB was lowered
off the back of Orca 3 and I jumped aboard. My first attempt at landing was
inauspicious, after pushing in as close as we could in the swell and picking a
suitable landing point, I went to jump off the bow, only for the tender to drop
away from me on the ebbing swell. With nothing to push off, I toppled head
first into the drink, but my
Safequip drysuit and PFD did their job and I
quickly bobbed to the surface and was hauled back into the tender.
Angus Campbell decided we needed to bail out the boat, so we headed back to
Orca 3, where everyone thought we'd given up. But no, a quick turnabout saw us
motoring towards to Rockall again, and this time we had timed it perfectly. As
we headed into the rock, the swell dropped us but then on the next rise we were
sucked into the wall which gave me the opportunity to launch from the bow and
scramble as fast as possible to a safe point above the swell line.
Having caught my breath, and constantly reminding myself to take care in
choosing good foot and hand holds, I inched across and up the rock wall towards
the top. The holds varied between bomb-proof and slim, but the coarseness of
the rock provided decent grip, and I made good progress. After what seemed like
half an hour, but in reality was probably ten minutes, of climbing I was there,
on the flat platform that marks the summit; just me, a few birds and the shell
of the light beacon placed there in 1972 after the summit had been removed the
previous year by the Royal Engineers.
I proceeded down to Hall's Ledge with the ring bolts that Greenpeace had left
in 1997 making the climbing much easier. Once there and on reasonably level
ground, I had time to take in my surroundings, rub down and read the various
plaques that mark the history of successive landings and take a few photos. The
next job was to haul my gear up the vertical east face of Rockall. This proved
much harder than I had imagined due to the swell sucking the bags down,
friction from the coarse rock and the slipperiness imparted to the rope by the
guano.
Angus decided that the best alterative method was to try to use a rocket
launcher to get a new line to me. He had , I later found out, never used one of
these before! Angus's aim proved true and I had to duck out of the way as the
fiery projectile came hurtling rapidly towards my head! It’s something that
will stick with me for a while: what appeared from my angle to be a fire ball
roaring towards my face; I could see the headline “Adventurer shot off Rockall”.
I retrieved the line and started to haul. Pulling the first
pack about half way up the steep East face, it quickly became obvious that the
bag was going no higher due to this rope also slipping through my hands. Angus
decided that he should try and pull it up with the tender. He proceeded around
to the other side of the rock, to the point where I had climbed up, and I threw
down the line. The system worked well, except for the inability to communicate
swiftly enough to get him to stop pulling once the bag was aloft. I was jerked
to the ground whilst attempting to hold onto the pack and badly jarred my knee.
Anyway the pack was up.
The most westerly Scottish distillery, Abhainn Dearg in Lewis, had given me a
cask to take to the summit. At only 15kg, on dry land this seemed a simple
request, however out in the North Atlantic it was not. I could not pull the
barrel out of the swell zone, and having got the keg as high as I could, it was
at least touching Rockall, I tied off the line so as not to lose it. Within
minutes the line snapped with the tail pinging past my head and the cask
floated away to sea. Luckily it was spotted by the tender who quickly retrieved
the barrel and got it back on board.
Photos taken, and memories made, I was requested to return to Orca 3 as the
weather was turning for the worse earlier than forecast. I'd been on Rockall
for an hour, but with all the action it felt like ten minutes. I was left with
one drysack and the remains of the flag pole to retrieve, but very little in
the way of ropes. Deciding to tie my static abseiling line to the remains of
the haul line, I lowered the poles and bag over the edge to the waiting tender.
These got caught on the jagged rock below so I retrieved them and decided with
much shouting to the tender that the best option was to throw down the line for
them to retrieve followed by the bag and the poles would follow. Half of the
plan worked! In being launched over the side, the poles broke free and a
sacrifice was made to the sea gods. Fortunately the bag sailed high and wide,
despite its weight, and made it to the ocean. Unsurprisingly the climbing rope
sank and so the tender had to come close in to the rock to retrieve the line.
The bag and its contents were hauled aboard. Surprisingly, a bottle of whisky within
had remarkably remained intact despite all the action!
All that remained on Rockall was me. I down-climbed the route that I had taken
up, and in some respects this was much easier than the climb up. I took a minor
detour and had to back track, but otherwise it went well and I made it to the
surf line. Taking a moment to decide which direction to jump, the decision was
made for me! In one last act of dominance, a wave came from the side and
slapped me off the face of Rockall. I hit the water hard, but again my
equipment did its job and I swam as quickly as I could to get out of the surf
and rejoin the tender.
Once back on Orca 3, there was lots of congratulating and hand shaking before I
took a seat and a moment to take in what I had achieved. Very few people have
seen Rockall let alone set foot on it, and many of those who have landed didn't
make it to the top. To have visited, landed and summited, albeit briefly, was a
fantastic feeling. Raising money for Help for Heroes in the process added to
the feeling of success.
We had to move quickly as the weather was turning, which was why I hadn't
stayed on the rock overnight. Everything, including the tender, was pulled
aboard and lashed down and we head east towards St. Kilda. I managed to get
eight or nine hours of sleep on the journey back, and awoke to a ghost ship in
Village Bay; everyone else on board was asleep. There had been much sea
sickness overnight as it was a rough crossing which I had fortunately missed.
Angus awoke, and proclaimed that he wasn't going back out to Rockall for a very
long time!
The expedition and landing would not have been possible
without the help of the following people: Angus Campbell, Angus Smith, Pete,
Nick, Mike, Pennie, Bob and Torquil.
Links:
https://www.buffwear.co.uk
www.kildacruises.com
http://www.safequip.co.uk/
http://www.rutlandoutdoor.com/b/506/Adventure-Medical-Kits.html
http://store.aquapac.net/
http://www.tacklestore.net/
