The Shark Boiler Photo

Photographer’s Note

We sailed into the harbour on the wee island of Soay, just south of the Isle of Skye. When we rowed ashore we came across the remains of an industry I knew nothing about - shark oil.

They used to catch basking sharks off the western isles and bought them in to process them down for oil. It was the headquarters of Former HQ of The Island of Soay Shark Fisheries Ltd, started by Gavin Maxwell, a famous British author who wrote "Ring of Bright Water".

The factory only lasted for 3 years but caused a reduction in the numbers of basking sharks, from which they have yet to recover.

Maxwell wrote a book about it called 'Harpoon at a Venture'.

We sailed out to Heyskeir to see if we could spot any basking sharks, but were unsuccessful. We did have dolphins alongside, just outside of here.

The harbour is amazing - it's a little inlet that is only accessible at high tide as there is a shingle bar across the entrance, but this makes it amazingly calm inside.

Apparently the island had the very first solar-powered telephone exchange in the world, an amazing place for such an innovation.

A photo of the ruined shark oil factory is here - The Shark Factory and some ancient boots found inside the factory - Lost to the Sharks?

tyro, goldfishrock has marked this note useful

Critiques | Translate

tyro (2662) 2009-07-17 15:46

Hello, Alastair.

By Jove, now that is a very interesting and informative note. I knew nothing of either the shark-oil industry in the Western Isles nor of that solar-powered telephone exchange. Fascinating.

Your picture shows what looks very much like a boiler retrieved from a railway locomotive and I presume that is what it is. I know that old locomotive boilers were sometimes used to power laundries and suchlike, so I presume high-pressure steam from this boiler was somehow used in the shark oil processing.

A nice clear and sharp picture too. I just wonder if it might have benefitted from just a touch of increase in contrast and saturation but, in my opinion, a photograph like this with its accompanying note just fits in perfectly with the original premise of TrekEarth - "Learning about the World through photography."

I've learned quite a bit from this photograph and note. Thank you, Alistair!

Kind Regards,

John.

[workshop] [compare] +

windosil (768) 2009-07-21 9:53

Yes, this good photo is even better with John's suggested enhancements. The colours form an unusual but very satisfying palette. Inr=teresting note, too.
Winifred