Twenty miles out in the Atlantic from the Shetland Mainland, the cliffs of the Kame drop 376 metres almost straight into the sea, among the highest sheer sea cliffs in Britain. Around seventeen people live on Foula, one of the most isolated inhabited islands in the UK, crofting and fishing on ground their grandparents worked.
A small ferry run by BK Marine crosses from Walls, taking about two hours, twice a week; in fair weather there are also short flights from Tingwall. Great skuas, known locally as bonxies, and other seabirds nest on the cliffs and moorland through summer. Islanders kept to the old Julian calendar when the rest of Britain switched to the Gregorian one in 1752, so they still mark Yule, their Christmas, on 6 January and see in the new year on the 13th, gathering at one house to share food, music and riddles called guddicks.
