When the people in Dublin said that getting to Skellig Michael was difficult, I looked at the map and thought 300kms - how can that be complex? But they weren’t talking about the drive across the country they were talking about the last 12kms across water. Booking a boat to go is almost impossible because they don’t take long term bookings because of the weather. Even the slightest swell can make landing on the island tricky and when they say this isn’t a trip for the fainthearted they aren’t exaggerating to entice thrill seekers – it really is tricky.

First of all, if you are not a good sailor you have to avoid the Irish Fry of bacon, sausages, black pudding etc. Then you take on the litigious filled Irish way of getting on a boat – by heaving yourself over the edge of a bobbing jetty onto a bobbing boat, across the deck full of rope, nets and cray pots, then haul yourself over the side of this moving boat onto the next moving boat and jump down onto the deck narrowly missing other stuff strewn around. I sat there speechless (now there’s a first) as the captain started up the engine and started out of the harbour. At this point he hadn’t asked anyone there name or had taken any money. (He also didn’t share any other information like where the life jackets or life rafts were either). So we were off to see the island on which in the year 490 some monks decided to build a monastery, but is now only inhabited by petrels, gannets, gulls and puffins. (I’m a quick learner).

The whole trip was magical. After an hour the island looms up out of the haze to a height of 200m with almost sheer cliffs. We got off the boat by waiting for the swell to get to the right height next to some concrete steps - and then you leap. You then climb six hundred c1,500 year old steps trying to imagine why people would isolate themselves like this – especially knowing that they probably rowed here in coracles (sp?) The monastic buildings at the top were beehive stone cells that you can enter and feel how the monks would have lived out there day in silent prayer. A really appropriate experience given that the day was Easter Sunday.

Listing all the birds they had spotted. the avid bird watchers looked almost euphoric as we descended back down the steep stairs to do the reverse with getting back on to the boat. I was much more connected to the people history and the aesthetic beauty of the cliffs which like the stairs had no protective balustrades or fences – obviously there were no lawyers in 490. By the way, the boatman made a nice little earner by taking 40 euros cash off the 14 punters without a ticket or receipt - perhaps the taxmen, like a lot of people, think getting to the Skelligs is too difficult.