Journey 1
Thomas Pennant
Staffa
Why did Pennant bypass Staffa?
Pennant keenly wanted to visit the inaccessible island of Staffa, for its basalt
columns were a geological riddle.
But the captain of his ship refused to risk the rocky waters, and Pennant had to be content with a distant sail-past.
On a 90-tonne schooner similar to Pennant’s, Nick Crane tries to find out why. After all, Pennant’s Captain – Archibald Thompson – would have had the most up-to-date nautical charts of the day.
The problem was that these charts lacked the corresponding land detail navigators needed to truly trust them. The lack of land maps of the area was thwarting Pennant even when at sea, and reinforced the importance of his work.
Reading between the lines, there’s another explanation: Thompson and his crew were “freshwater seamen”, used to plying the gentle River Clyde. Sailing among the Hebrides was a different story altogether!