After visiting the Caithness landfill site, I took time to travel back to Ullapool along the dramatic coastal road. How wonderful to see so many clean beaches. Ito check this out but think this may be as a result of the tidal currents along  this North West stretch of the coast  which keeps the  litter off shore, plus the litter that does reach the shoreline is washed out easily across the sandy beaches and not caught in rocks and stones . The result is often the tourist industries announcement of  a converted  ‘Clean Beach Award’.

My litter notes on beaches in the bays of Farr, Sango and Balnakeil were so short, only 10 pieces over 500m an on some stretches had absolutely nothing! I rejoiced and ceased making notes on litter in favour of  photographing, collecting and sketching seaweed.

This reminded me that it was my ‘wanting to see’ the seaweed, stones, sand and all the marine life that occupies the Littoral Zone  without having to search for it through the beach litter that started me off on this  journey. I look forward  to making relief prints from the seaweed samples collected over the last few days, which I will be sending to crowd funding supporters of the project. I will be making further prints of my north west coast seaweed collection so please e mail me  at littoralrtproject@btinternet.com if you would like to support the project through purchasing a print.

Tonight I am sad to be leaving Ullapool and my friends here, but glad that this time I am heading east to follow the recycling journey of my ‘litter lines’ s. But  I will be back to show the progress of my investigation findings in the autumn. Thanks to everyone in Ullapool for their support!

On the mainland the hauled up lines  and containers full of litter from the beach have been collected from the Isle Martin Slipway by the Highland Counci and taken back to Ullapools Waste Transfer Station. I  spent Monday mirroring  the sorting procedure of the station selecting out materials for recycling and landfill . In total 116 kilos of litter  was removed from the back beach and  towed off the island, unfortunately there is much more still there!

The majority of the litter  was rope and commercial fishing litter, with a small amount of domestic litter the majority of which was undoubtedly plastic bottles and caps . From my collection the plastic bottles and metal cans are the prime the materials that will feed into the recycling program of the Highland Council the rest will unfortunately be going to landfill .   I will shortly be heading off north to follow the  journey that waste materials going to landfill make from Ross-Shire once compacted into the road containers.

As I worked through the litter inside the  open shed of the Transfer Station  high on the hill  Isle Martin was in view and  I mused on  how in less than 24hours I had moved from the  sublime to the ridiculous. I will definitely return to the small fascinating sublime island to revel in its ecology and views.

I towed the last litter lines off the island on Sunday. The corrugated plastic sections of prawn boxes float well, but as I pulled away from the pontoon the slits in the box sections caught on to one another  creating an underwater knot which kept wrapping around as I doubled back to the the pontoon. Pausing to to unravel the knot  I realised the  rubber gloves tied on the end  section had unbalanced the line causing it to twist. Pulling the rubber glove and gun cartridge lines into the boat I set off again this time a  broad  white  line was drawn across the surface of the  loch leading from the boat to the island .  A  strong symbolic  mark denoting the three weeks work mapping collecting and removing removing the washed up litter on an a small uninhabited island.

The litter lines drawn across the loch have been recorded and will form the starting point for a  series of future visual statements  about the nature and volume of  beach litter along our coast. I intend to bring the development is work back to Ullapool in the autumn, to celebrate the work of the Littoral Art Project’s work here  with all those who have taken part over the past year.

After our big towing event on Thursday, yesterday I downed oars and spent the day drying clothes, resting a dodgy knee with a kelp bandage on and enjoying the sun. Wanting to have a day enjoying the beauty of the island I set myself the challenge to ignore the remaining litter on the beach. Keeping this in mind Cal and I spent the afternoon meandering from rock pool to rock pool enjoying the wide variety of rocks that make up the pebbles and cobbles on the beach. Eventually we climbed the biggest rocks at the north end of the beach jutting into deep water where I dangled a fishing line into the clear water for a few hours, looking into the sea became mesmerising, spotting sea urchins anemones and starfish all clinging tight to the rocks, unfortunately the only fish I saw were smaller than the fly’s on my hooks .

Living on an island and not having caught a fish to eat feels a great omission especially as I realised my stock of food was running low, fortunately there was/is plenty of biscuits and coffee left. But the nagging question is where are the Mackerel surely there should be a source of sea food on an island?

Today I woke looking forward to rowing the dinghy and towing the remaining three litter lines off Isle Martin to Ardmair. My plan soon had to be re-configured to accommodate the strong easterly winds that had set in, the next job on the list was to remove the un-connectable bits of litter mounded up on the beach but how?

Thankfully my project has been supported by John a generous boatman  who today offered to tow the mounds back behind his yacht. So the tangles of rope, net, shoes, hats and plastic boxes were ferried out to bedeck John’s boat. The luxury crossing only taking 30 minutes even in the choppy seas, once moored the reverse dinghy to shore process was quickly carried out making sure we were also able to make the opening of a new exhibition of work ‘Source’ by artist Barbara Peffer at An Talla Solais few miles away in Ullapool.

As I still have litter lines waiting to be towed to the mainland and I need to collect my kit together to head back on the road this coming wee, to follow the recycling journey. I decided to return to the island tonight if possible. As the wind seemed to have dropped a little I decided one last evening crossing would be possible. I quickly wheeled the dinghy down the slipway on a sack trolley with me underneath it like a turtle until reaching the seaweed on which I could smoothly launch it into the water. As soon as I was in the boat I realised the tide was still pulling and that the easterly wind was picking up. Both causing me to quickly assess my route across, so I headed into the wind as I knew I would soon get pulled quickly in the direction of the island once beyond the protection of the moorings. No time to think of seals, surrounding landscapes and nearby seabirds tonight only pulling as hard as I could and holding my course and nerve.

On reaching the safety of the pontoon in record time fueled by a massive adrenalin rush I began to think how essential it is to have a powered boat  for anyone to be able to live on Isle Martin, Accessibility to the island is a necessity for the Trust to be able to develop their work here. Perhaps the biggest challenge for the Trust and myself is to raise funds  to be able to develop our projects!
Crowd funding has been the prime funding source for this second stage of my project together with the in kind support from individuals like John Mcintyre, Dave Falkoner and all the skiff rowers plus organisations like An Talla Solais, Ullapool Harbour Trust, Ullapool Museum, Ullapool High School. For which I am hugely indebted a massive thank you!  At the end of a long day/week I see my biggest challenge after  rowing across a lively sea is to find funding to enable the project to continue and to follow the strong lines of investigation developing. Any ideas please get in touch!

It may have been a grey dreich day but it has been a wonderful day crossing Loch Broom.

Two teams of people managed to successfully tow over 150m of litter off Isle Martin today, in celebration of World Environment Day. The thousands of pieces of litter were collected and joined together on the Back Beach of Isle Martin over the last two weeks.

Thankfully the day started calm and warm though with light rain as the first team of Ullapool High School pupils arrived with Topher their teacher at 10.30am. After a very quick break for oranges and biscuits on the beach we carried the lines of plastic bottles and bottle caps down to the waters edge, where they were tied together and then onto the skiff.

The line stretched over 75 metres behind the boat even though the bottles were light the drag they created , plus me being an extra person in the boat certainly made it a harder row back to were they had started from earlier. The team pulled together well and steadily and it was great to see a pupil steer us so well to Ardmair slipway through the moored boats and buoys. A great contribution to the project and to showing what we can do pulling together to care for the environment.

Well done : Norman, Jake , Mairi, Mhairi and their teacher thanks also to the head teacher Robbie McFedries for coming out to cheer them in with Lesley Strachan their art teacher.

As the school team headed for a hot chocolate in the campsite cafe the second team donned their life jackets and quickly took up their places in Cul Mor which was turning into a wonderful sociable place to be. Our second team was coxed by Merlin a director of the Isle Martin Trust, with all important oars people John (ecologist/engineer/invaluable project supporter), Bill ( Ullapool Museum volunteer), Lesley (Ullapool High School teacher) Anne ( member of the Ullapool Coastal Rowing Club) and myself (photographer)
Our row out was magical as the rain eased and we glided swiftly from the shores of the mainland to those of the Isle in wonderful monochrome light and mist.

Ashore we selected the long blue lines of rope , plastic containers and threaded polystyrene to attach to the skiff . in a bid to get closer shots of the lines I took up the steering position. For this trip we had Cal on board as our living misquote in the bow of the boat with John.
On the return we kept up a steady pace followed at times by cormorants seagulls and we think possibly accompanied at one point by a minky whale. Quite an entourage to witness the litter being removed almost all of which must have been washed up on the island as its not been habited for years.

As we neared the mainland we saw that Dave (today’s photographer) had wonderfully returned to document our arrival   and a group of holiday makers keen to see and hear about our endeavors . So the World Environment Day  ( United Nations  World Environment Program)  message is spreading. To work together to make a difference no matter how small. Over the next few days I will tow the remaining litter lines off the Island and bag up the mounds of random materials that I couldn’t use and take across to the mainland to be picked up by the highland Council on Monday and in the coming weeks I will be tracking and reporting on the recycling journey each of the litter materials.

Many thanks to everyone  who joined me today to work hard and have fun celebrating  ‘World Environment Day’  – many more photographs of the event to follow over the next few days

6am: Weather check : Calm,  overcast , drizzle, light breeze

Throughout the day we have a 60% chance of rain with wind speeds of up to 8mph  later from the North North East  NNE to North East  NE

So the Littoral World Environment Day Event will be happening very shortly! The first  Litter Lines will leave Isle Martin at approximately 10.45am today. Keep watching !

Litter Line event – Isle Martin – World Environment Day- 5th June 2014

08.00        Weather check confirm/reorganise
09.00        Prepare lines, refreshment s for rowers
10.00        School skiff team and boat arrive at Ardmair slipway
10.15         Row to Isle Martin Back Beach
10.45         Lines secured onto the skiff while skiff team have refreshmentso
11.15          Skiff sets off to Ardmair with lines and Julia
11.30         Skiff arrives at Ardmair slipway, lines pulled up. Skiff team thanked
12.00        2nd team arrives at Ardmair.
12.30         2nd team row back to Isle Martin
1.00          Break on the beach , lines attached
1.45           Row back to Ardmair slipway
2.15           Arrive at Ardmair lines hauled up stored for collection on Friday
3.00          Thanks and celebration (beach or Ardmair teashop)

Please ring Julia for confirmation , updates on times etc 07977997605

The last few days  have involved tightly focused  collections from the beach in order to make sure that I only select the 12 items that I  selected to make my lines from,  to enable me to complete the  construction of  my lines before the ‘tow off’ on Thursday

Commercial items such as rope , prawn boxes, gun cartridges, and domestic items such as bottles and  caps . The items are the most commonly washed up and the the ones that I have found  methods to simply link them together by piercing, drilling threading and stitching. The unselected litter such as the mounds of tangled rope and random objects will be bagged up and carried to the mainland in the boat. All the litter line and bags are to be picked up n Friday Morning by the Highland Waste Services

As I called a halt to more collections yesterday, I am now turning to testing making lines on the waterand organising where to take photographs from to capture the event.  And the all important letting people  know the where and when of the day.  A rough schedule will be posted today, please pass this information onto anyone you know who is involved.  For those following further afield please let people know about the event and support our World Environment Day by commenting on the blog and twitter @LittoralArt. She you tomorrw weather permitting!

This afternoon I had a wonderful visit from four Ullapool friends to assist me in making my Sunday collection of litter from the Back Beach.

It was great to have help to carry the plastic bottle lines already assembled back to the beach and to share what I have come to know about the beach with them and to discuss the sheer depth of the litter that pervades beaches like this even when they look seemingly clean. After many sweeps of the beach collecting bottles, caps, cans, ropes, gloves polystyrene, melted plastic we quickly sorted and carried our nets of objects back to my temporary workshop.

By the end of the afternoon we had threaded over 300 caps onto approximately 25m of plastic cord and line before we  had a well earned snack before my friends boarded Johns elegant ‘ferry’ back across the loch. Watching them leave I wished for the loch to be as still as it is tonight on Thursday for towing the lines to Ardmair.