Four Winds Lookout Tower - Islay

I returned to Islay last month to spend the better part of a week. The highlight of the trip was the place where I stayed, the Four Winds Lookout Tower. It is a former coast guard facility that has been renovated into stunning, self-catering accommodation. Standing high above Pornahaven, at the tip of the Rinns of Islay peninsula, it has an expansive view overlooking the lighthouse island of Orsay and the far-off coast of Ireland. In the first photo, the tower is visible on the hill above Portnahaven.

The view from the top-floor bedroom was breathtaking. It was like being in the wheelhouse of a ship at sea. Centerstage was Orsay Island, home to the Rinns of Islay Lighthouse. Each day's end was marked at twilight, when the light started flashing every five seconds; flashes that continued until daybreak.

The ground floor has a fully equipped kitchen and a combined shower/toilet room, another echo of a ship at sea. 

The top-floor bedroom was reached by a near-vertical ladder, one that reminded me of the steep stairs down to the cabins on many of the ships I'd been on over the years.

Every night but one was a peaceful paradise. On the third night, I was woken by a loud banging on the door. Wondering what the hell was going on, I climbed down the ladder and looked out the door. I found myself face-to-face with a dozen sheep, their noses pressed up to the tower, who'd found a place to shelter from the wind.

Four Winds is truly unique, and I hope to return someday. Adding to the appeal, a friendly pub, An Tigh Seinnse, is a short walk away.

For more information on Four Winds, the website is: https://www.fourwindsislay.co.uk/

Private Roy Muncaster - R.I.P.

While on Islay last week, I made my way to Kilnaughton Military Cemetery, a mile west of Port Ellen. It's a small cemetery, with around a dozen tombstones. Many tourists pass by the cemetery without even knowing it's there, when they drive the hilly single track to the Mull of Oa. For, it is on the Mull that you'll find the American Monument: a sixty-foot-tall stone tower that commemorates the Otranto disaster off the shore of Kilchoman in 1918 and the sinking of the Troopship Tuscania by the UB-77 earlier that year. (For more on the Otranto, see the October 11, 2019 post.)

The Kilnaughton Military Cemetery lies above the beach, northeast of the burial ground that surrounds the fifteenth-century ruin of the chapel of St Nechtan. The only American still interred in the military cemetery is Roy Muncaster, a Private in the US Army, who perished when Tuscania was torpedoed. Before joining the Army, Muncaster had been a forest ranger in the Olympic Mountains of Washington State, where the 5,910-foot-high Muncaster Mountain, fifty miles west of my home in Seattle, is named for him. With the lone exception of Muncaster, all the American victims of the Otranto and Tuscania disasters were returned to the States or buried in the American Military Cemetery in Surrey. Muncaster’s parents wanted him to remain where he died, here on beautiful Islay.