Easdale Island

Whitewashed cottages cluster car-free on Easdale, the smallest of the Slate Islands, quiet since its slate industry closed down. Slate was split and shipped from here for roofs across Scotland and as far as Australia and New Zealand, cut from pits sunk below sea level and kept dry by constant pumping; when the pumping stopped, the old workings flooded, and those pools are what give the island its scarred, watery look today. The Easdale Island Folk Museum, in a former quarrier’s cottage, has the tools and photographs to go with the story. Every September since 1997, one of the flooded pits has hosted the World Stone Skimming Championships, a community fundraiser that has grown into a world contest, now drawing competitors from more than two dozen countries to skim flat pieces of slate for distance. A passenger ferry crossing of a couple of minutes links Easdale to Ellenabeich on the Isle of Seil; there’s no reason to bring a car, since there’s nowhere on the island to drive it.