Wind Farms

Wind farms have been a very controversial subject on the Isle of Lewis for many years. I first posted about them 10 years ago here. I won't try and make a case here for or against them but will simply say that I am qualifiedly in favour of them in principle. There have been and still are many proposals for wind farms on Lewis but real progress has been hampered by the lack of the multi-billion pound interconnector which would be needed to transfer the power generated to where it was needed on the Scottish and English mainland.
 

I will, however, tell you a short account of something that happened to me a few years ago. I was sitting in a hotel on one of my journeys in England or Scotland. A small but noisy gathering sitting adjacent to me were discussing windfarms. I was taking no notice until someone very loudly pronounced that "You would never see windfarms in New Zealand. They are too concerned with their environment and their tourism. They would never stand for them." I was about to ignore that when he started up again and I politely said that as they were speaking so loudly and it was impossible for me not to be in their debate I'd like to make a small contribution. They were quite amenable. I pointed out that I lived part time in New Zealand and that, in fact, New Zealand had the largest windfarms in the Southern Hemisphere and that they were an integral part of their 80+% reliance on thermal, water and wind energy for their electricity. I was invited to join their debate but having made my point I politely declined.
 

Part of the Te Apity wind farm with The Handbag in the foreground. I do miss the decade running around New Zealand with the lid off.

These are two of the windfarms in New Zealand in the Manawatu at Te Apiti and Tararua Ranges having 55 and 134 turbines respectively.

Wind farms and turbines generate a wide range of opinions from outright opposition to widespread acceptance. Opposition is due to noise, aesthetics and ecological factors. However New Zealand has one of the lowest carbon footprints from electricity generation in the world. These two windfarms are very prominent and claim to be a significant tourist attraction. Certainly I've seen lots of people stopping in the carparks to look and take pictures.

Aphantasia

My maternal uncle was able, in his 90s, to read pages from schoolbooks which he could see in his mind's eye. He had a photographic memory.  

Some people, though, have little or no ability to visualise things ie they have no visual memory. I am one of those people. If, for example, I am trying to compare two things (perhaps pictures or sets of numbers or whatever) even if they are side by side I have to do it tiny bit by tiny bit looking from one to the other constantly. If there are seven individually distinctive skiffs sailing in the harbour, the second I look away from them I have absolutely no idea what order they are in unless I've managed to commit that to words and can remember the words. I have pictures on my walls that I have gazed at for hours but could still not describe them to you in anything but the most general of terms.

Those examples are, of course, very simple and only a small part of what it's like not to have visual memory and it is only within the last decade that I've become aware that, apparently, relatively few people have this affliction 

If you are curious as to your ability to visualise things then close your eyes and imagine walking along a sandy beach and then gazing over the horizon as the sun rises. How clear is the image that springs to mind?

Of course, every police officer and defence lawyer will tell you how poor people's visual memory is as evidenced when it comes to describing an incident and those participating, in the way the police would require of a witness. 

I know someone with prosopagnosia, also called face blindness, which is a cognitive disorder of face perception in which the ability to recognize familiar faces, including one's own face (self-recognition), is impaired, while other aspects of visual processing (e.g., object discrimination) and intellectual functioning (e.g., decision-making) remain intact. Apparently it is a separate thing to lack of visual memory.

How alone am I in my blogworld?

Remembrance

Yesterday I was fortunate and privileged to be invited to go along when the Stornoway Rowing Club  went out from the Inner Harbour to the Beasts of Holm (the rocks on which HMY Iolaire foundered). I was not rowing of course but got a ride on the safety rib. Some yachts accompanied the skiffs as well. We were fortunate in that the Minch was calm with little more than a breeze but it was cold with a temperature not much above freezing.

When the skiffs arrived at the site of the disaster 201 paper boats were floated, the crews sang a hymn and saluted those who lost their lives. It was both poignant and moving.

Gathering on the marina pontoons

The 'Lewis Diver' rib I was fortunate to go out on.

Rowing across the harbour

Rowing around the Beasts of Holm

Floating the paper boats and singing a hymn

SY233 'Jubilee' the last original ‘sgoth Niseach’. Ideally suited to fishing in Scottish coastal waters, the clinker-built, lug-rigged ‘sgoth Niseach’ took their skippers and crews into the unpredictable waters of the North Atlantic

The Iolaire lies between the marker on the rocks and the shore.

The Salute

HMY Iolaire

One hundred years ago today occurred one of the worst maritime disasters in United Kingdon waters since the loss of SS Norge in 1904. It was undoubtedly the most tragic single occurrence to befall the combined island of Lewis and Harris.

The Islands had already lost about 1200 men in their prime during The War. The addition of 174 Lewismen and 7 Harrismen within yards of the shore of home made the tragedy even harder to bear.

Only 75 of the passengers survived, and the death toll may in fact have been higher as the ship was overcrowded and passenger records were incomplete. Many of the survivors were saved by the actions of John F Macleod, Port of Ness, who jumped from the boat with a line, miraculously made land, wedged himself in the boulders and hauled ashore a hawser, along which most of the survivors struggled to safety.

The tragedy has  been the subject of a number of books and many articles and there have been and will be many acts of remembrance during this week in which I shall, hopefully, participate and about which I hope blog.

Last evening there was a torchlight procession to a service and concert of remembrance attended by Scotland's First Minister and HRH Prince Charles.

I will not try and repeat much that has already been written but for anyone with an interest in the Islands, history, maritime history or who are just curious to know some more I will provide some links.

Wikipedia  Stornoway Historical Society  Virtual Hebrides  Hebridean Connections

Books:

The Darkest Dawn: The Story of the Iolaire Tragedy by Malcolm Macdonald and Donald John Macleod. (2018) Publisher: Acair. The most authoritative and thorough account of the event with details of those lost and those who survived.

When I Heard The Bell - The Loss of the Iolaire by John MacLeod. Publisher:  Birlinn Limited.

There are more which can be found by Googling "Books Iolaire disaster"