The Maritime Rescue Co-ordination centre in Stornoway
Today was another day of firsts – this time it involved me taking to the skies with a coastguard team in a Sikorsky helicopter.
I was privileged to be invited to join staff and volunteers at Stornoway Maritime Rescue Co-ordination centre and to take part in one of their training flights across Lewis. And what a fascinating eye-opener it was. Nerves of steel and an unfaltering commitment were evident within minutes of meeting them. All four men in the crew were the very epitome of calmness and professionalism.
I started my visit meeting some of the 12 volunteers who work at the Stornoway-based outfit who told me about their role in helping the Coastguard function at the phenomenal level its does – round-the-clock cover for an area spanning hundreds of miles.
Meeting the Coastguard volunteers
Next was a visit to a state-of-the-art Operations Room emblazoned with maps of their huge patch.
I met several members of the 22-strong staff who told me how just hours before my visit the team had been called out to trace a hillrunner who had failed to return home – and was dressed in just shorts and a T-shirt.
Incredibly, the crew found the man just two minutes into their search. Thankfully, the rescued hill runner was absolutely fine – a happy ending.
There was a very poignant reminder of the fearless and potentially fatal work the Coastguard does in the mess area. A picture of Billy Deacon hung over the mess area as a tribute to an incredibly brave winchman who lost his life whilst on a rescue off Shetland 13 years ago.
I was given a tour of the team’s Sikorsky – bought just a few years ago at a cost of £20 million – and was told that on average, the Stornoway base receives about 190 call-outs a year. The equivalent of a call every day and a half or so.
After a quick safety briefing I was strapped in for the main event, a 20 minute training flight over Lewis.
In flight with the Coastguard
Within seconds of the engines starting up the noise was deafening, the craft started to shake a little and then with the smoothest take-off I have ever experienced we were off.
I could not get over how peaceful and calm, if noisy, it was. Within minutes I was invited to sit in the cockpit and told about all the top-of-the-range equipment used to save so many, many peoples’ lives.
I was quite simply blown away by the crew’s professionalism and selfless attitude to saving people from fishing boats, hills and cliffs. The job they do is remarkable.
I came to the conclusion that if I was ever unfortunate to get in any bother requiring Coastguard help I was now reassured the best of the best would be coming for me.
The crew with the Sikorsky Helicopter
It was a wonderfully humbling way to end the first leg of my summer programme this year.
Another – less eventful – flight to Glasgow and drive to Galloway has me home from the first leg of my summer programme this year.
So what have I learned from my four days in the Western Isles?
Many people think of the area as being very remote but it seems to me that while they are somewhat distant they are no longer as remote as a result of improved transport links which have made the mainland so much more accessible.
I was intrigued to discover during a chat with a local that someone living just a few miles out of Stornoway could be in London in the same time as me – from my home in Galloway.
Overall I was very encouraged by the general level of awareness about the Scottish Parliament here. Many people seem to know how to access Parliament. But as always there is still work to be done to ensure that many individuals and organisations – particularly in the voluntary sector – have a voice at Holyrood and feel comfortable engaging with their Parliament and its members and systems.
It is also good to know that here in the heartland of the Gaelic language the Parliament’s efforts to embrace the language though its Gaelic language plan are appreciated. I felt proud to tell them we were one of the first public organisations in Scotland to introduce such plans.
I will long remember the area’s stunning coastline and how the environment here is reflected in peoples’ qualities and personalities. Many of the people I met were passionate, ambitious and determined. While at the same time displaying a modesty which does them great credit.
I will forever have very fond memories of my few days on my working programme in the Western Isles.
Next stop….. Perth, on Monday.
