A day on St Martin's; Isles of Scilly diary part two
Six hours between tripper boats could never be enough
I’m writing from our island home on St Mary’s after the most overwhelmingly beautiful day on one of the other islands. Armed with a full free day and encouraged by an earlier boat departure at 8.45am rather than the more leisurely 10.15 for the other islands, we’d quickly settled on exploring St Martin’s.
The trip over was a little chaotic, I’ll admit. Every day at 8.30am-ish I’m chatting to BBC Radio Devon about my time on the Isles of Scilly, which is great fun of course. The catch is that I also have to play radio DJ John Acres at their daily game ‘celebrity birthdays’, which is not my forte, to say the least. Add into the mix a noisy boat engine, choppy water when other boats glide past and my propensity to sea sickness and it was one hell of a ride!
It felt like a huge sigh outwards stepping onto St Martin’s. It’s instantly clearly all about the natural world and not the man made. You can see beaches, islands, trees, turquoise waters as far as the eye can see. Not a person in sight, yet there was no loneliness to be had.
We propped up the easel on the warming sand of Lower Town Quay to start, oystercatchers peeping away on the islands opposite and the sun glinting off the bright white Round Island Lighthouse.
The day tripper boats tend to drop you at one end of the island and then pick you up from the other due to the tides, so we had a couple of kilometres to cover by the last boat pickup at 4.45pm. That doesn’t sound like much, but when you’re carrying a full-sized easel, basket chock-full of paints, four canvases, provisions and layers, it’s a bit more involved! We decided to spend the day making the journey, breaking it up into chunks and pausing wherever an amazing scene captured my eye.
The next pause came after a long hill on the island path, where a little bench invited us to rest in front of a magnificent view across to Tresco. Fields around us were filled with flowers or emerging bracken, golden pheasants crowed and bees buzzed around us as the sun ramped up in intensity. It was no time at all before the tea flask was popped open.
Lunch was on the agenda next, and we stumbled upon Polreath Tearooms at the perfect moment. Not only did they top us up with delicious soup, refreshing cold drinks and an offering of shade, but they also had the most incredible traditional Scillonian glasshouse next to a silver tree, native to Cape Town!
Suitably fed and rested, the last leg of the day was a downhill rumble to Higher Town Quay, passing more gorgeous granite cottages with incredible views over to the Eastern Isles. We had a couple of hours before the tripper boat back to St Mary’s, and one last canvas, so I set up to capture the wide sweeping bay with bobbing boats and immaculate turquoise waters.
Kimmy and Katherine seized the opportunity for a dip before we left the island. I felt exhausted from the effort, but wonderfully reconnected with what is important. Very happy tired.
Tomorrow we head to Tresco, and we’re going to be making a bee line for the Tresco Abbey Garden. I have only heard incredible things…
Gifted travel from Isles of Scilly Travel, including the St Mary's Boatmen's Association tripper boat to and from St Martin’s, accommodation and transport from Scilly Carts.
Browse and shop the works at www.emilypowellstudio.com/isles-of-scilly