Our third day in Ireland was our favorite day for the whole trip (so far at least). We left our house nice and early to drive the Ring of Kerry at a relaxed pace on down to Portmagee. While I would agree the Ring of Beara is better, the Ring of Kerry has some pretty decent sights of its own.
And then we arrived in Portmagee, a cute port town where we would be hopping on a small boat to head out on the Atlantic. Signs warned us of the dangers we had ahead, but I knew all of this already. We found our captain and before long, hopped on board and took off.
The boat ride was definitely rougher than I was expecting. Our boat was up and down, up and down, while water continued to splash in at us. It took 40 minutes to get out to Skellig Michael, and actually landing was a whole new ordeal. Here close to the island, the boat was tossed to and fro, rocking and rolling until we were able to pull into the landing area. And then the captain and co-captain were hard at work, getting us pulled up close enough to hop off, and helping each of us along the way.
But then it was time to explore. Birds were everywhere. The Skelligs are important nesting sites, and thousands upon thousands of birds circled overhead, while even more were wandering around the cliffs. I saw a puffin fly overhead and got SO EXCITED. Little did I know, that I would be seeing them all around me in just another few minutes (there were around 10,000 on the island while we were there, according to a guide).
There are more than 600 stairs to climb to get to the monastery at the top of Skellig Michael. Monks had arrived here in the 6th century and got to work building their beehive huts. After the boat ride I had just experienced, I cannot come close to imagining what would lead a group of people to decide to hop in a tiny wooden boat, without a motor, and cross that wild Atlantic, and then somehow get onto this cliffy island in those waves, and decide it looked like a good place to live. But they did.
I’m sure they thought they were at the end of the world as they did so. And when storms weren’t lashing at the island, I’m sure it was a quiet, peaceful place to worship. And they built these crazy little stairs we were climbing up, surrounded by puffins, and they built the beehive huts at the top to live in, worship in, cook in, etc. A whole little city. And now a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
For food, they would climb back down, climb into their boats, and fish. They would try to store up enough fish to last them through the winter. They would also use the birds, eating the eggs and the meat of the puffins (breaks my heart 🙁 ). At the base of the island, they would grow vegetable gardens, where the terrain was better suited. They also introduced rabbits to the island at some point, and for a short period of time, goats as well. This also is insane to me because clearly that means they made trips to the mainland and back. For water, they had to collect rain water as there was no fresh water on the island.
The monks left the island in the 12th century. There were two lighthouses added in the 1800s, and a few repairs made back then, but the majority of the site is exactly as it was when the monks lived on the island.
While at the top, a woman gave us the history of the island, which was truly fascinating.
Its more recent claim to fame was as the site Rey found Luke in the final scene of the most recent Star Wars movie.
After our history lesson, we went off exploring, getting views of Little Skellig.
And exploring areas we hadn’t seen yet.
And also hiking up another cliff, this one without steps, to get a better view of where we had been.
We ate a small picnic here. It was an absolutely gorgeous day to visit the island, other than a strong wind that made the stairs (which have no rails or anything, FYI) quite intimidating. It’s only accessible in the summer months, when conditions are right. Even then, only a few people are allowed on each day (13 boat operators have permits to land on the island, and those boats are small). I felt so lucky to be there.
We slowly made our way back down those rock slab steps. I took my time taking millions of pictures of puffins because I just love them SO MUCH, guys. Also, did you know that they kind of sound like cows? And they mate for life? I found several little happy couple puffins, rubbing their beaks together all adorably and such.
At the bottom, we waited for our boat to pull up. This turned out to be even more difficult than it was the first time. My stomach dropped as I watched the boats bobbing around out on the powerful waves. Our boat was able to get a few people on board, but had to pull out and come back in to get the rest of us. Once again, I was astonished that people 1500 years ago had managed the journey over and onto this island, without the technology we have now, and the landing pad, and the steps.
We rode out to Little Skellig, and I was shocked by just how many birds were nesting there. The island looked white, which I had previously thought had to be a combination of birds and flowers, but no, they were all birds. And there were whole clouds of birds circling overhead. It was insane.
But the best part is when our guide pointed out the seals down on the bottom rocks. I only had my little waterproof camera out, so I couldn’t get great pictures of them, but there were several seals flopping around, not so gracefully.
The trip back to Portmagee seemed to go a bit more smoothly (or maybe we had just had very low expectations), and once there, we took off on the Ring of Kerry again, but cut over to the Dingle peninsula where we stopped at Inch beach.
We drove through brilliant green hills and valleys throughout the rest of our short drive to Dingle town.
Dingle town is quite charming, though definitely touristy. We walked down to the harbor, and then came back up for a quick drink at the pub, where dozens of cyclists were sitting drinking and relaxing, erupting in cheers and shouts every time a new cyclist rode on up.
We then went to a pretty nice restaurant overlooking the marina for dinner, sitting out in the sun room. During this dinner, Anthony managed to put his napkin in the candle. We looked up from shoveling food in our mouths to see we had a fire on our table.
Anthony kept trying to blow it out and just kept blowing fiery ashes into my lap. I, on the other hand, grabbed the rest of my glass of water, and dumped it over the table, extinguishing the fire. So we were sitting there, eating our dinner on our wet table with the charred napkin remains, and Anthony dropped a chunk of his bread on the floor, and for some reason, this just completely set me off into a fit of giggles. I was laughing so hysterically that I was crying. All these old rich people eating around us were probably staring at us, wondering what the hell we were doing there. I’m laughing again just remembering it, and I still can’t figure out why it was so freaking funny.
Anyway. Pride gone, we finished our dinner, paid, and left. We drove out of town a bit to get to our house on the peninsula, which we are both pretty dang pleased with.
I took a lovely bath and then hung out in our sun room overlooking Mount Brandon for the rest of the evening, windows open to listen to the lambs baa-ing and the brook babbling. Can’t complain one bit.