Running before the wind

Monday 19th June 

Having stayed over night in Braewick campsite we were up early and down at Stenness beach to be greeted by morning mist and drizzle. Undeterred clutching Wellington boots, cameras and GoPro stick we set off for sea with Tom Williamson who was waiting for us in his creel boat . 

It meant that we could get some sense of the experience of leaving from Stenness Beach as the sixareens had once done; of what the Haaf fishermen would have seen as they rowed out to the fishing grounds, behind them the land and Böd slowly receding and before them the open sea and far horizon (not that we went anywhere as far as they would have gone). 

 

During the fishing season from around Beltane Day in May to Lammas Day in August their days and nights were spent traveling in an open boat between shore and far haaf setting lines and hauling the fish until there was a full catch in the boat and they could turn and head back to shore, where the ling and cod would be washed, salted, and laid out on the stone beach by the beach boys while, after a few hours rest, the men returned to the sea. Bleached white by sun and air, the white fish, so prized on the continent, would be stacked and then weighed by the factor and a record made of each boats catch.

Hand-written list of Ling shipped from Stenness, 1817 (document held in Shetland Archives)

I've read that the men sometimes rowed for nine hours, although, weather permitting and with a good wind behind them, with the sheet raised this must have taken them to the far haaf a lot faster. A hard life, and one in which they didn't have much say but to go to the fishing, given pretty much all they had was owned by the Laird.

Extract from Fisherman's Agreement Book, 1861 (held in Shetland Archives)

The day we went out there was a brisk wind and choppy seas, the mist hanging over us, but I know they experienced far heavier seas running. Being so low in the water the land disappears the further out we traveled. Even so, rowing Foula down with its high cliffs, would have been some feat. Any bit of land would have acted as a marker - a meid from which to orientate their position. As Tommy Isbister remarked 'when you were sitting down in a boat ..when the land was sinking you knew where you were'. These men would have known their sea, could read how the water was running, and most of the time knew how the weather would be.  Despite this there were times when there was heavy storms and loss of life.

Grave stone in graveyard at Eshaness

Returning from the haaf fishing the first sight of the beach would have probably been the chimneys of the Böd rising above the hills, or smoke rising from the lodges.

Thank you to Tom for taking us.

Putting the haaf fishermen back on the beach

Sunday 18th June - Readings

We met on Stenness Beach and a small group gathered; people very generously came and gave us their time and voices to read in the shelter of the Bød.  

We made some wonderful oral recordings read from 19thC handwritten texts that we’ve been painstakingly transcribing - extracts from the Day Book (now kept at Tangwick Haa Museum) noting daily purchases from the Bød when once it was a shop, from the Fishermen Agreements Book and from records of the Ling fishing - kept in Shetland Museum & Archives.

Thank you to John N Hunter, Nancy Hunter, Valerie Watt, Ruth Fisher, Wilma Stewart. 

The names of the fishermen who once inhabited the lodges and worked on this beach floated into the air and out to sea, merging with the sounds of sea birds and the sea pushing and pulling on the shore. It felt pretty special - in fact it made my spine tingle. 

Haaf fishermen from 1890's Stenness, (published in the New Shetlander No 59, 1961, supplied by John H Johnson)

Extract from the Fishermen's Agreements Book, 1861, Shetland Museum & Archives.

Stenness fishing lodges and Haaf fishermen 1890's ( Shetland Museum Photographic collection)

Slowly the beach begins to emerge as a place of work and the noise of the men working and living here. The more we walk around the shores the more the remains of the lodges become visible. Looking out to sea we imagine the sixareens pulling away from the shore, the land gradually disappearing as they row out to the far haaf. 

Today it's cold and there's a wind blowing the sea into the bay. Jo is up on the cliff on one side filming the incoming tide.

I go back to my kite flying attempts.... there's enough wind but I'm not sure that the camera is set in the right place...

It does give some sense of the landscape. I even catch glimpses of the ruined lodges and can see them more clearly as part of the landscape, but it's probably a bit too random for our project. Yes it would probably be easier to use a drone but I'm not keen on such high tech approaches and I like the sense of drawing in the sky over the landscape.

We leave the beach at 11pm - simmer dim is approaching in a few days time, but we need our sleep. Another busy day approaches

Agreeable beauty

Saturday 17th June  - Agreeable beauty

While the south of the UK is sweltering in 32 degree heat here in Shetland we have perfect weather for filming mist out at sea using 16ml film and video.

Followed by some photographing of atmospheric ruined lodges scattered around Stenness beach. Most have disappeared, swept away over the last 100+ years by the action of wind and sea as well as the stones being plundered over the years sine they were last occupied in the 19th C to build walls and houses elsewhere.

They would certainly have been agreeable to 18th C William Gilpin's definition of the picturesque as 'that kind of beauty which is agreeable in a picture' and for whom a bit of a ruined abbey or castle with rugged edges would add 'consequence'.

Days full of sound

Thursday/Friday 15th/16th June  - Full of sound

Having collected Shetland's own musician Catriona MacDonald we drove to Stenness and recorded the wonderful sounds Catriona playing the Shingly Beach tune composed by the famous Tammy Anderson. Set against the sounds of the sea and birds it was pretty special  (not that we are getting or intend to be romantic!).

Margaret Anderson arrived and was recorded reading about the Ling catch in Stenness on Friday, June 19th 1812, her fine voice mingling with the tide's comings and goings.

And finally it was time to go home. Tomorrow is another day...

Friday 16th June started as yet another session of filming the sea  - using the GoPro above and below water level

and more recording bells ringing and footsteps walking on the beach.  

But the best of the day was a visit to Mary and Tommy Isbister on Tronda - such a wonderful mind - knowledge of and skills in building boat, violins, houses, playing fiddles, farming, fishing ....

sixareen line and hooks

We left, having recorded Tommy and with much information about the Haaf fishing, how to split a Ling, and the construction of sixareens filling our heads.