Seals, New Yorkers and other Árainn creatures

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I take a toy plane (six passengers) to Inis Mór, the largest of the Aran islands (Oileáin Árann).

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The ten minutes flight is shaky and low, but not scary, because it really feels you are in a harmless little toy.

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The passengers clap upon landing on a lazy sunday morning Inis Mór (Árainn in Irish). A Japanese woman with long black hair armed with a Nikon and high heels does not clap. She is on a three day trip from New York. A tripod made of black and grey plastic balls hangs out of her purse.

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I order 'full Irish breakfast', a healthy mix of sausages (three kinds), bacon, fried eggs and beans. I want to go to the old pagan fortress of Dún Aonghasa, a circle of stones on the top of a 100mts cliff in the middle of a karstic landscape.

I ask a bald man for directions. His name is John. He tells me about his time as a peace-keeper in Lebanon in the eighties. He has been working as a musician in the pubs of the island for the last seven years. He tells me about arguments with Israeli soldiers, who didn't know that their president then had been born in Belfast. Former Israel president Chaim Herzog was born in Belfast in 1918.

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I walk down the road towards the pagan fort. An old tall German guy accompannied by a dog overtakes me, tells me to walk on the right because we are not in the continent. We talk about the crisis. He mentions an NGO based somewhere in the island and staffed by foreigners that promotes respect for the environment and renewable positive energy.

Although the NGO sounds a bit scary, they are probably doing a good job, because the place looks green, natural and clean all over. However, when I continue walking I find a beach that appears to be full of inflated plastic garbage bags.

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I come closer to realize the garbage bags are actually grey Oceanic seals. They lay placid in the water looking at the passersby in a very Sundayish attitute.

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The seals jump in the water and swim around with only their noses sticking out of the water. I look in the water line to spot the fin of a shark. Normally where there are seals there are sharks but I don't see anything. A large grey seal remains sitting on the rock looking at me. Maybe it's the matriarch.

In the past some sailors, with obviously unhealthy eyesight and great imagination, thought seals were women waiting for them in the shore. They got close to the rocks and ended up shipwrecked.

This seal is actually very cute. I spend some time in the beach contemplating the scenario and realize it's too late to reach the old pagan fortress. Time to fly back to the Connemara shore.

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