Oooh, happy memories!
We went out there on a scorching hot, cloudless blue-sky-and-sunshine day in June 2001 (that's where my avatar photo was taken) and climbed the hundreds (can't remember how many there are supposed to be now) steps to the top and the monks' Beehive huts. How I got myself beyond the Puffins I'll never know but it was well worth it. There were Storm Petrels nesting in the walls of some of the Beehive huts and we could hear them "purring" from deep inside the stones - fantastic! We were so lucky: our first attempt and we made it: a Canadian chap on our boat had been year after year but had been thwarted every time before by rough seas or bad weather.
Good to hear you can still actually get out there: when we went there was a new "Skellig Experience" somewhere which it was thought might replace actual visits by a "virtual" tour and possibly a non-landing boat trip - which sounded dreadful to me.
Hope the powers-that-be saw sense! Mind, as we descended all those steps there was an overweight, over-dressed American gent on his way up dragging what looked like a cabin trunk with him (perhaps he was using plate cameras??) and muttering about wanting a "goddammmed elevator"!
We half expected to see an Air-Sea Rescue helicopter going to pick up his body later...
Of course, passing the huge Gannet colony on (Great?) Skellig on the way was fantastic too.
All in all, it couldn't have been a more perfect day all round and our friends in Co. Clare were astonished a couple of days later when they discovered from Himself's peeling features that it really was possible to be sunburnt in Ireland!
