Fróðskaparrit - 01.01.1970, Page 146

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Gannet Catching in the Hebrides
were hauled up on to the rock and secured there until the
fowlers were ready to return home. This was done in the
following manner.
An hour before high water, the boat was moored to a ring
which had been fixed — at some indeterminate date in the
past — in the rock. Four men then proceeded to lift the bows
out of the water until the boat was balanced on the edge of
the landing rock. This operation was controlled by the rope
which ran through the iron ring. The stern was now lifted
out and the boat hauled and propped up in a gully, which it
practically filled, and moored to a large boulder. When, as
normally happened, two boats were used, one was man-
handled up nearer the top of the rock. The boat in the gully,
being nearer the sea, could be damaged by heavy waves if a
sudden storm should blow up. To ensure that the timbers
suffered no harm, a wad of peat which was transported for
that purpose, was packed between the boat and the sides of
the gully.
Nowadays, the fishing boat remains at anchor off the skerry
while men and gear are transported ashore by dinghy. Only
this dinghy is hauled up on the rock. After all gear and supplies
have been safely conveyed to the top of the skerry — a process
which may take five or six hours even in favourable conditions
— the fishing-boat sails away and will not call at Sulaisgeir
again until the fowlers have completed their work.
In the comparatively level area above the landing point are
the houses in which the fowlers will eat and sleep. Four of
these are presently in a habitable condition; the ruins of at
least two others are visible. They are all built entirely of stone,
with the same corbelled, »beehive« construction. The base is
very roughly circular; from this, successive rounds of over-
lapping stone are built up, gradually becoming narrower, until
the tapered top is closed. The present huts have all been built
within the past seventy or eighty years. The art of building
these beehive stone huts is still known to the Nessmen, and,
should any of the houses on Sulaisgeir have been damaged by