The Lighthouse Stevensons - Bella Bathurst [77]
On his return to George Street, he presented his report:
The Rocks of Skerrivore lie 12 miles South of the Island of Tyrii and about 35 Miles from either of the Light Houses of Barrahead and Rhins of Islay. This Reef forms a very great Bar to the Navigation of the outer passage of the Highlands, a Track which is used chiefly by His Majesty’s Vessels of War and first Class of Merchantmen. It is also an obstacle of no small magnitude to the foreign Trade of the Clyde and Mersey. The Rock on which it is proposed to build this Light House forms the foreland of an extensive track of foul ground lying off the Coast of Argyllshire. This reef has long been the terror of the Mariner, but the Erection of a Light House upon Skerrivore would at once change its Character and render it a rallying point of the Shipping which frequents these seas.
The reef, he concluded, ran for seven miles in total, much of which was permanently submerged underwater. Skerryvore itself was only the highest of a cluster of rocks: Boinshly (the ‘deceitful bottom’) lay around three and a half miles away from the proposed site; Bo-rhua (the ‘red rock’) lay between Boinshly and the main reef.
Skerryvore ran for around 280 feet in total, much of which remained underwater even at low tide. Between each of the major rocks flowed narrow channels of water that looked tempting enough for small-boat sailors but were primed with underwater hazards to trap the unwary. None of the three separate reefs made an easy site on which to build. The main reef was pocked with peaks and gullies and surrounded with a rampart of detached rocks. Much of the surface was so irregular in places that the movement of the water flung spouts of water on to the reef like the blowholes of whales. And on those parts of the reef that took the full weight of the sea, the rocks had been worn smooth, almost icy. Even more awkwardly, the sea had eroded much of the reef’s underwater surface, gashing it with deep subterranean trenches under apparently solid gneiss. As a site for a lighthouse, Skerryvore could hardly have been worse.
Robert, however, seemed confident of his chances. At the end of his report, he blithely claimed that ‘the Erection of a Light House on the Chief of the Skerrivore rocks is not only a practicable work, but one which will be much less difficult and expensive than that of the Bell Rock.’ It was a strange judgement. Robert, of all people, understood the hazards of building tower lights and knew not to underestimate their complexities. Admittedly, unlike the Bell Rock, some part of Skerryvore was always out of the water even at high tide. But in every other respect, Skerryvore was an altogether more daunting proposition. The Bell Rock was at least one solid reef, whereas Skerryvore lay scattered like miniature mountains over many miles of sea. The Bell Rock was also sheltered a little by the bulk of the east coast, while Skerryvore was stuck right in the path of every Atlantic gale roaring over the seas from Newfoundland. Those storms, as Robert well knew, could reach a pitch of ferocity and destructiveness that the North Sea rarely matched. More seriously, the area surrounding the Bell Rock was well known and well surveyed. The waters around Skerryvore, by contrast, lacked even the most basic soundings. Admiralty charts of the west coast, the Minch and the Hebridean