Gavin Maxwell, the naturalist who wrote Ring of Bright Water, moved into the old lighthouse keepers’ cottages on Eilean Bàn in 1968, after his previous home at Sandaig burned down, and lived here until his death the following year. The island, whose name means white island in Gaelic, sits right under the Skye Bridge, its central pier planted on the rock as the bridge crosses from the mainland to Skye. The lighthouse itself, built by the Stevenson family in 1857 and decommissioned in 1993, still stands, and otters, the animals that made Maxwell famous, still live along the shore. The Eilean Bàn Trust runs the island as a nature reserve now, with otter and bird hides, and the only way to visit is a guided walk booked through the Bright Water Centre in Kyleakin. Kyle of Lochalsh, on the mainland side, is a short walk from the bridge.
