galmc2Report

Why do we have a desire to visit certain places? The motivations can be many, and in my case a few times I can track the “hey I’d like to go there” origin to seeing a locale as part of a good movie. That’s part of why I had a desire to visit Iceland in 2015 (here’s the clip from “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty” that got me thinking “hmmm”)

When I saw the mysterious island that Luke Skywalker had retreated to in “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” and “The Last Jedi”, that same “I’d like to go there” feeling was kickstarted. A little research told me that this cool island was named Skellig Michael, and was located off the coast of Ireland.

Once we decided that Ireland would be part of this trip I thought perhaps this was an opportunity. Then I looked into it a bit more and learned that getting to the island required a boat ride through potentially some bumpy waves. Given that Heather (and me too now it seems) have had significant issues with seasickness, I thought this was a non-starter.

Imagine my surprise then when Heather mentioned to me that visiting Skellig Michael was something she’d read up on that sounded cool. I said I’d also thought of it, but figured it was a bit too taxing. She thought this was just too cool to pass up, so we booked a day (it’s recommended to prebook as only 180 ppl/day can land on the island) and hoped that the weather gods would be supportive of our plan.

Fast forward to July 8th when we rolled into Portmagee, which is where we had booked our landing tour to depart from. We got the email from the tour company that night that we were still tentatively good to go, and that we’d be notified the next morning at 7AM if we were on.

Now it’s July 9th. Motion sickness medication has been taken. We are now on the boat and on our way! Thankfully, while a bit rocky at times, Heather and I are able to be unscathed in our journey. We are told that this is the first time in four days that the tour has gone out.

Along the way our guide tells us that we are passing by another location featured in a big movie. Lemon Rock was featured in a key scene in “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.”

The first of the two Skellig Islands we see is Little Skellig. No one can land on it, and it serves as an erstwhile bird sanctuary. Apparently last week, before the big rains, the white on the island was from bird droppings. Today, it’s strictly the birds. There’s that many there!

Now that the appetizer was finished, it was time to move onto the main course. Skellig Michael awaited. We did a lap of the island and then proceeded to get close enough to the pier so that we could all get off of the boat. Now it was time to explore!