My First visit to Coll.

"From a two-week holiday on Coll 25 years ago, my wife Clare had described Coll as an idyllic isle. She had often told me of an old bull wandering sleepily up the main street, of Neil the shop and of the silvery sands.
So it was with keen interest at the end of an island-hopping tour this summer that we latded for a two-day stay at Arinagour: was Clare's memory an idealistic one from her youth or was it accurate? The first evening we soon entered into the spirit of the island and split our sides laughing watching a lady and gentleman (who turned out to be Ruth and Robert Sturgeon) pulling a huge old sheep along by the horns, while three children pushed from behind. The sheep carried three year's fleece on his back since his owner had been unable to catch him for that time, and he was soaking wet, having fallen in the water and been rescued from swimming out to sea by the Sturgeons.

The next day was a glorious one with hot sun and clear blue skies. We headed off to the west of the island past the castles and walked over the sand dunes - colossal mountains of sand crossed by the lone track of a cow - and there at last was Feall Bay stretch before us! What a glorious sight - the silvery sands arching in a perfect curve, with turquoise-coloured water, near to shore and deep blue further out, fringed by the brilliance of the spray on the rocks.

We were the only people in Feall Bay and it was magical: - the shifting curves of the dunes: the lovely shapes of the rocks created two billion years ago and ingrained with quartz and marble: the miniature rivulets created by the tide: the rock pools so clear and teaming with life - veritable miniature gardens of Eden. In fact, life in all its fullness and rich diversity was all around us. “0oh, look at this and this and this..." said Clare over and over again as she discovered some new wonder of camouflage or adaptation, as a shrimp tickled her toes or a snail left a trail in the sand. And over the bay many gannets were flapping their wings with perfect timing just before plummeting into the water at speed.

Clare's vision in all its purity was still alive - and renewed.

And yet - in one corner of the beach lay the rubbish of humanity, ever straining to ruin this delicate world - plastic containers, glass bottles, polythene bags - so convenient back in the "real" world. We filled a sack with as much of this detritus as we could drag back to the car - more as a small protest at humatity's ugliness than as a solution to the problem, since most of the rubbish was still there as we departed. But we hope that more hands can follow and clean up this human blot on perfection.

We left the island reluctantly with our vision of Beauty restored and determined to return for much longer next time."

Eric Priest.