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Calve Island is an uninhabited low-lying island off the east coast of the
Isle of Mull The Isle of Mull ( gd, An t-Eilean Muileach ) or just Mull (; gd, Muile, links=no ) is the second-largest island of the Inner Hebrides (after Skye) and lies off the west coast of Scotland in the council area of Argyll and Bute. Covering , ...
in
Argyll and Bute Argyll and Bute ( sco, Argyll an Buit; gd, Earra-Ghàidheal agus Bòd, ) is one of 32 unitary authority council areas in Scotland and a lieutenancy area. The current lord-lieutenant for Argyll and Bute is Jane Margaret MacLeod (14 July 2020) ...
on the west coast of
Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to th ...
. A whitewashed farmhouse with substantial outbuildings stands on the western shore, used as a summer residence. The island is in length, and wide at its widest point. Calve is owned by the Cotton family who make use of it in the summer months.


Tidal offshore islands

Calve is classed as a separate island from Mull, although at its south-western point there are extreme low tides that would allow land access to it, via the small tidal island of Cnap a' Chailbhe. Between Mull and Calve runs the channel known as Dòirlinn a' Chailbhe. Calve provides some shelter for Tobermory Bay, helping to make it a safer anchorage. At the north-west of Calve is another small tidal island called Eilean na Beithe.


Diving

The waters around Calve provide various popular
diving Diving most often refers to: * Diving (sport), the sport of jumping into deep water * Underwater diving, human activity underwater for recreational or occupational purposes Diving or Dive may also refer to: Sports * Dive (American football), ...
sites, both on the rocky walls and reefs and at the wreck of the Pelican. The sheer wall of submerged rock, over 44 metres in depth, at the north-eastern point of the island, was named 4th in a top ten of Scotland's 'Wall dives'. It was given top marks for depth, marine life, visibility and the rock wall itself. It was only the absence of dangerous tidal currents that kept it off top spot.


Wrecks

There are three wreck sites close to the coast of Calve, all of them between Calve and Mull. The oldest and most substantial is the Pelican, a steel-built paddle steamer built in Cork in 1850 and used by
Caledonian MacBrayne Caledonian MacBrayne ( gd, Caledonian Mac a' Bhriuthainn), usually shortened to CalMac, is the major operator of passenger and vehicle ferries, and ferry services, between the mainland of Scotland and 22 of the major islands on Scotland's west ...
as a passenger ferry/liner. By 1895 she was in use as a Coal Hulk in Tobermory Harbour. In a storm in December 1895 she broke her moorings and was driven across Tobermory Bay and onto rocks on Calve. When the tide fell, she slipped off the rocks and sank in 20 metres of water. At the south end of Dòirlinn a' Chailbhe lies the wreck of the Strathbeg, a motor fishing vessel which sank at mooring during a gale in May 1984. A third wreck, a single-masted smack called Anna Bhan has been identified by divers, but there is no date or details of loss. In May 2009 the speedboat (
RIB In vertebrate anatomy, ribs ( la, costae) are the long curved bones which form the rib cage, part of the axial skeleton. In most tetrapods, ribs surround the chest, enabling the lungs to expand and thus facilitate breathing by expanding the ch ...
) 'Sooty' ran aground on the northern tip of Calve at 23:30, having left Tobermory shortly before, after an evening drinking at a local pub. It is thought that the boat was travelling at around at the point of impact, driving it a further 11 metres onto the rocky shore. Of the four men on board, one was thrown out of the boat onto the rocks and died of his injuries. It is thought that reckless speeds, insufficient attention to the GPS device, an absence of lookout and failure to prepare a passage plan were all resulting from and exacerbated by the influence of alcohol.


Symbol of depopulation

In 1934 a pioneering kayak expedition was made by Alastair Dunnett and Seamus Adam around the
Inner Hebrides The Inner Hebrides (; Scottish Gaelic: ''Na h-Eileanan a-staigh'', "the inner isles") is an archipelago off the west coast of mainland Scotland, to the south east of the Outer Hebrides. Together these two island chains form the Hebrides, whic ...
, sending back their expedition reports to the Daily Record and Evening News. Amidst the depopulation and poverty of the islanders they found that Calve Island was farmed by a single extended family, and stayed to help with the harvest, meeting two sisters, Margaret and Janet McDonald, who were locally renowned as competitive rowers. Alistair Dunnett (who went on to become editor of
The Scotsman ''The Scotsman'' is a Scottish compact newspaper and daily news website headquartered in Edinburgh. First established as a radical political paper in 1817, it began daily publication in 1855 and remained a broadsheet until August 2004. Its pare ...
) wrote of how Calve showed the Scottish island not as a beautiful barren waste. 'It was on the contrary, a rich land, if neglected; fertile in all but faith'. Undertaking another such kayak expedition in 2018, the historian David Gange was disappointed to find that, unlike the signs of revival across so much of the Hebrides, Calve has no population and minimal agricultural activity. It stood for him as symbol of the fragility and lack of resilience in the current re-population of the Scottish Islands compared to the situation before the Clearances of the previous two centuries.


Stamps

Local stamps were issued for Calve Island in 1984 bearing the image of a
Basset Hound The Basset Hound is a short-legged breed of dog in the hound family. The Basset is a scent hound that was originally bred for the purpose of hunting hare. Their sense of smell and ability to ''ground-scent'' is second only to the Bloodhound.Hart ...
. The nearest GPO post box is at Tobermory, on mainland Mull."Basset Hound Stamps
animalstamps.com. Retrieved 3 January 2009.


References


Bibliography

* {{coord, 56, 37, 5, N, 6, 2, 26, W, display=title, type:isle_region:GB Tidal islands of Scotland Uninhabited islands of Argyll and Bute Underwater diving sites in Scotland