About

In July 2011 Cape Farewell embarked on a month-long expedition by boat across the Scottish Islands, bringing the notion and experience of expedition home to the UK, with an exploration of island ecologies and cultures, and of the strategies for sustainable and resilient futures being implemented across the Scottish Isles. More ›

The Crew

The expedition crew of 40 includes island artists, storytellers, film makers, playwrights, architects, designers, musicians, community leaders, social scientists, ecologists, marine biologists, oceanographers, poets, acclaimed Gaelic singers and a chef.
Meet the crew ›

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Exploring

Video


Video highlights

Watch video highlights from the expedition ›

Cape Farewell – we know what to do, can art help us get on and do it?

The following is an excerpt from Sara Parkin’s article found on the Forum for the Future website. …I was fortunate enough to join the crew for one week of a four week tour of Scottish Islands, starting with Skye and Canna before crossing the Minch to Mingulay, Barra and South Uist. The weather was kind,... Read more ›

Mary Arnold-Forster

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Skye architect Mary shows the house of Fred Taylor she designed and reflects on the progress on Eigg and other green based aspirations for the islands architecture and energy supply.   Video shot by David Buckland     Sketches by Mary Arnold-Forster

Heisker (Monach Islands)

Monach Islands
Swam this morning off Ceann Ear, one of the Monach islands (Heisker) torn from North Uist by centuries of storm and broken into an archipelago of white shell sand beaches, dunes and flowering machair. We travelled in a day from the dark vertical near-impossibility of St Kilda to the horizontal stillness and limitless skies of... Read more ›

Corncrakes

Field
One of the simple pleasures of living in North Uist is to stand in my garden just after midnight and listen to the loud rasping ‘crex, crex’ song, recalling a grated comb, of around 10 corncrakes that inhabit the crofts surrounding the loch where my house is situated. After long-term declines dating back to the... Read more ›

Only Connect

‘A person is a person because of people’ African saying When it comes to artistic talent, I am a non-starter.  As a practitioner that is. My skills in that regard lie in appreciating the work of others, in any medium.  Joining Cape Farewell, therefore, is a real treat for me. As I haven’t seen much... Read more ›

Conservation in the Sound of Barra and East Mingulay

Barra and East Mingulay
In 2000, Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH) proposed the designation of the Sound of Barra as a marine Special Area of Conservation (mSAC) to protect sandbanks and seals. This was followed, in 2008, by a SNH proposal to designate an mSAC in the waters east of Mingulay (a smaller uninhabited island lying to the south of... Read more ›

Tatties

Potato patch
Joining the expedition I’m leaving behind my potato patch which is doing rather well as are my carrots, onions, lettuces, tomatoes, herbs and strawberries. It was Sustainable Uist (SU) that inspired us to start growing our own veg again when we moved here earlier this year. To quote directly from the SU leaflet: “Food miles... Read more ›

Stiuir

Under sail, Mull to Rum
Life’s good on Eigg. The sun’s out. The tea room down by the old slipway is doing a roaring trade. The Shearwater ferry’s over from Arisaig on the mainland, and has delivered musicians Gabe McVarish and Ross Martin to the plaintive strains of shoreside piper Dona. They’re playing tonight with Eigg musician Damien Helliwell in... Read more ›

Cheese Blog

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By the time I’d finished quizzing him about his cheese making, Brendan Reade was slightly worried that I was involved in a spot of industrial espionage. Having made a fair bit of curd cheese in my time I have a rudimentary understanding of the cheese making process but having the chance to grill a real... Read more ›

In motion

Kenny Black, SAMS
The weather’s closing in, grey spray above and below, as we travel up the Sound of Mull to Tobermory. We’re all here, 12 artists and scientists and 3 crew, crammed, wedged and folded into our cabins on Song of the Whale, absorbing the practical details of life on a boat: sea toilets and life jackets,... Read more ›