Inhabited, west coast Scottish islands - Rona

 

Next on my bucket list tour of inhabited, coastal and inner Hebridean islands is Rona. It is often known as South Rona to avoid confusion with another, but uninhabited, Rona which lies roughly 44 miles to the north of the Butt of Lewis. This Rona lies immediately to the north of Raasay and is basically a continuation of the larger island (if only the linking ridge hadn’t dropped below sea level). 

Rona is small, about 5 miles long and, at most, a mile wide (or about 3.6 sq miles in area) with Meall na h-Acarsaid, at highest elevation, being only just over 400 feet. From what I've read Rona is very rocky and rough with little land that can be cultivated, but my visit was so brief, and confined to the area around it’s jetty, that I’m unable to say one way or the other with any personal knowledge.

There is no easy way to get to Rona apart from renting a holiday cottage and getting taken across by boat from Portree on Skye (unless, of course and once again, you have your own boat). An alternative is to book on one of several tours which do land on Rona and provide enough time ashore for a wander around - but at a price. The population is given as between one and three (depending upon which article you read). The main inhabitant, these days, would appear to be the chap who manages the estate and holiday accommodation - with maybe a couple of employees helping him and accounting for the other two.

It would appear that, these days, there is little in the way of managed animals life on the island. For example, it would appear that there are not any sheep - although red deer and a herd of Highland cows have both been introduced and no doubt form part of the income, on top of the holiday accommodation, that the island generates. There is very little information on the Internet about the various wild fauna to be found on Rona but I would expect otters and all the usual birds and marine life to be found around Scotland's west coast. In fact, on my way back from my (very) brief visit, we spotted a hump back whale frolicking in the waters just south of Rona and between Raasay and Skye. There is also a lack of information to be found of Rona’s flora. However, if there was anything rare then I would have expected this to have been mentioned.

My own visit, as previously said, was very brief. I managed to get myself on an early Saturday morning trip. This sailing was to take a new batch of visitors, bound for the holiday accommodation, across to Rona while also bringing back those whose visit was now over. As well as transporting the visitors and their luggage, this sailing also had to carry over quite a lot of food and drink supplies as there are no shops, or any facilities, on the island. My stay on Rona was only for about ten minutes and was restricted to the area around the jetty while the above transfers of people, luggage and suppplies took place - then off back to Portree. At the same time I was not charged a penny for this (“I was going over anyway” said Ewen, the owner and captain of the Seaflower). The Seaflower is a 40 foot catamaran which normally runs sea trips for tourists to the area around Skye, Raasay and Rona, including some of the landings mentioned above, but also performs this transfer task for the Rona estate (I presume) on Saturday mornings. So my thanks to Ewen for helping me tick Rona off my bucket list for no cost.

 As usual I will end with a few photographs of Rona. In this case there are very few. This is due to the short time I spent on the island and the weather conditions. The two days I’d spent on Skye during September 2024, visiting Soay and Rona, had been glorious weather wise - except for the mornings when blankets of cloud settled over some areas (but not all) before burning off after an hour or two (low flying clouds I call these). As we left Portree, Rona was reported as being basking in uninterrupted sunshine - but by the time we arrived, about one hour later, it was under one of those cloud blankets and visability was pretty poor.

 

The photo above was taken from the jetty at Rona.

 

The photo above was taken on Rona but very close to the jetty.

 

 

The above shot was taken from the Seaflower as it was about to depart and head back to Skye.

 

 The above photo was taken of the jetty at Rona from the Seaflower as we headed back to Skye. 

The photo above was taken from the deck of the Seaflower, looking back towards Raasay and Rona. Ewen had turned the Seaflower around to go back for a better look at the wee black mark near the centre of the shot - which was a humpback whale. I unfortuneately failed to catch it doing a tail flip, which it did quite a few times while we watched. I should have switched to movie mode but I'd never used that before (a fairly new phone) and I didn't want to start messing about with the phone settings and miss seeing what the whale was doing. This shot also shows how wondeful the weather was away from the low flying clouds.