Foula

Foula is the most remote island still inhabited by people. This is really uttermost place which is hard to reach even nowadays. We had been waiting for a boat trip there, but it has been cancelled twice because of poor weather conditions

 So we had to take this tiny airplane called "Islander". It can carry only 5 passengers and doesn't look that reliable. Some of us were reluctant to board

A pilot tried his best to make us feel safe and calm

This is what we saw when we have landed

All coasts of the island are craggy and forbidding

But these dangerous cliffs are where some rare birds nest

The irony is that even after making such a long and perilous trip you still don't see many of them because in the daytime they fly away to get some food from the sea. Bird-watching is about sitting on a bluff rock and hoping to spot a bird or two

They say 30 people live on the island. We haven't seen any of them (except of three people on the airfield). Houses look depressingly abandoned

Coming to Foula is a kind of gambling. You can't be sure an airplane will be able to make the way back as scheduled. Fog and gusty winds never leave this place for long. We were lucky to come back the same day