Stack of Yesnaby

It was John Rae's birthday yesterday. 200 years old to the day. We had a nice wee ceremony at the graveside and gave him a wee dram to savour.

It's nice to think that as a wee boy he might have rowed round to Yesnaby on a day like today. Maybe for a wee bit of fishing or creeling. I don't think the stack would have looked much different in his day from this.

We like to think that things change quite quickly but I'm sure that small leg has been holding up the stack for hundreds of years. And, despite how it looks today, I'm sure it will be many more years yet until it gives way.

These rocks have been withstanding the Atlantic pounding for many many years. It's quite appropriate that, just as these rocks, John Rae took everything that the Arctic could throw at him and yet lived through it all, prospered, found the North West Passage and mapped over 1500 miles of coast.

John Rae, a brave, courageous, adventurous Orcadian.