Play misty for me

Timeline: Sunday 6.00am alarm for a 7.30am check in at Bideford to catch the Oldenberg for a sailing to Lundy Island for the ‘Air Day Hooray’.

The airstrip on Lundy dates back to at least 1934 when Atlantic Coasts Air Lines flew tourist flights to the island from the airfield at Chivenor, near Barnstaple. These continued after the war but petered out in the 1950’s with the general decline of the island and there was relatively little use of the strip, until a team of pilots and enthusiasts changed that with a plan for a fly-in at the turn of the century. January 2000 to be exact, when a random flyer, Pete White flew into Lundy on a whim from Bodmin and pioneered the Lundy Air Day.

Every year since then, there has been a fly-in organised by various flying clubs and ‘the Trusts’ National & Landmark. Lundy is as exciting for pilots of small aircraft as it is for the rest of us, all the usual challenges: short landings, subterranean boulders and low walls provide hazards for every pilot and intrepid Marisco Tavernier!

Anyway, this year was meant to be the post-covid resumption of the flying Flashearts with a record-breaking number of small planes due on Lundy. But you know the climate is changing and this has consequences, eventually we’re all going to boil to death;  but in the meantime there’s gonna be some weather anomalies to warm you up for it.. Air day was cancelled due to poor visibility as the planes couldn’t take off or land. Play Misty for me.

Still a fun trek round the island, the mist came and went and came back again.

All the Auks have gone and the grass is brown

due to this summers dry spell, so we shouldn’t begrudge a bit of well needed moisture, and there were plenty of Kittiwakes to cheer up a Jenny’s Cove picnic.

Misty Eastside.

Hamners, built in the right spot, just below the mist line.

Stumbled upon these Sika males near the rock crusher..

Foraging under cover of the mist…

but soon spooked and off..

Funny old light

It was very “atmospheric” ….

Some aircraft came early but couldn’t fly so had to spend the whole day doing other things.

Cheeky fellow watching me drinking a pint

of Old Light from the ..

Skies cleared for our departure, as you would expect, it was good to scratch the itch.

Please click on the photo you like the most to make it bigger.

It shows up in the stats and is of extreme interest to me and my therapists as

often the photo I like the most is completely ignored by my blogging friends…..