The plans were set when the weather was stunningly marvellous and the forecast was brilliant, fly to Colonsay and have a BBQ on the beach and fly back. Waking in the morning a cursory glance at the met forecast told a very different story – gusting 30 knots forecast for Islay (near Colonsay) and even the shipping forecast was for force 5 or 6 (in case we missed the island). We arrived at the airfield in glorious sunshine and our major worry was taking off with NO wind and a humid warm temperature (the gusting 30 knots seemed like a fairytale as we basked in the sun). We packed up snorkels, masks, fins, BBQ equipment and orange juice, programmed the GPS and all three planes backtracked 11 and took off once or twice on the grass and low over the concrete before clambering into the sky laden with Mike, Kim and BBQ equipment.

The flight over was uneventful skirting the south of the Edinburgh zone, over West Linton seeing a white plane below us and the shadow on the ground of a larger plane above us, crossed by the nuclear power station over to Bute then up and over to Jura to where I had swam a year ago. Down to Islay and crossing the sea to the island of Colonsay passing first over Oronsay the tidal island linked at low tide with Colonsay with a Priory and a now abandoned airfield. From there it was obvious that the Colonsay runway had been redone – a large welcoming tarmac runway was visible. Graeme landed first and on radio warned of bad turbulence on landing, followed by Richard who gave a ‘Wooooo ooooooo aaaarghhh’ on landing which wasn’t encouraging.

I was next – but had a problem actually getting the plane to drop – eventually after a few spirals over Oransay I joined crosswind, downwind then out to sea over the water crashing onto the reefs and turned for finals – as soon as I dropped below the hills the roughness started in the 30 knot gusting wind over the 300 foot hills surrounding the airfield and it was very difficult keeping the plane in any sense on track. The windsock was vertical across the runway so I was trying a diagonal approach and was over the runway too high and going sideways down it – looking like hitting the fence it was a goaround and climbing out way beyond the hills surrounding the airfield and made another approach with sweat running down my forehead.

This time it was as bad but felt more lined up, but wasn’t, lower this time though and went for it and helicopter landed and bounced onto the runway and ran along the runway. Taxied back in to be met by the others who definitely didn’t like the gusting wind landings (one guy was heading off to Coll and decided not to after the landing at Colonsay).

We tied the planes down and walked across the runway (no-one else was goingto be mad enough to land today) and over a rabbit hole covered dunescape to a deserted beach. The tide was going out and the beach was becoming more and more visible and as the others constructed the barbecue and food I donned my mask and snorkel and submerged myself on a sadly fruitless hunt for scallops. The water was surreal filled with parts of seaweed and it was difficult to tell the difference between the sand and the seaweed debris filled water. As I emerged from the deep with mask and snorkel it was heard that this was my ‘Daniel Craig moment’ – although the Wayne’s World NOT! seemed to be appended so I guess they just confused their movies. Besides although Mr Craig posseses and displays a 6 pack I am the proud owner of a firkin.

Sausages and chicken kebabs instead of scallops were a good compromise and cheesecake meant we were flying with most of the weight inside us now instead of in the hold.

Since there wasn’t any fuel on Colonsay so we had each brought a jerry can with 10 Litres of unleaded for each of us as an emergency ration. The plan was that when we reached Strathven, if we were heading south, or Glenrothes, if we were heading north, we coudl re-evaluate our fuel requirements and land and refuel at either airfield.