THE SPIRIT OF CRAFT Exciting flavours produced on the islands

by Isles of Scilly Steamship Company

SOMETHING SPECIAL A selection of Scilly inspired gifts

BENEFITS FOR YOU

New from 2020, the Night Riviera GWR Sleeper train’s timetable is matched more closely with Scillonian III’s scheduled departure time, allowing more time for you to relax and refresh before boarding Scillonian III. On arrival or departure at Penzance, a GWR lounge is situated in Penzance train station for Night Sleeper passengers to freshen up with accessible shower facilities and complimentary snacks and drinks. Connecting by train to Scilly couldn’t be simpler.

And if you’re flying with Skybus from Exeter, you’ll receive a 10% discount when booking car parking on the Exeter Airport website. Simply enter Skybus2021 when booking online.

If you’d like to use the Executive Lounge at Exeter Airport, as a Skybus passenger enter the promo code SKYEXT and you’ll get a £5 discount and free FastTrack security.

ISLES OF SCILLY

St. Mary’s

GWR lounge, Penzance Station

London Paddington

Penzance Exeter

Executive lounge, Exeter Airport

FIND OUT MORE: www.islesofscilly-travel.co.uk/isles-of-scilly-travel-flexible-tickets

SPIRIT

of CRAFT

There’s no denying it, craft drinks have been a huge trend in the last few years with pioneers crafting new and exciting flavours with a story to tell. We, as consumers want to see how a product has been made and move towards products made locally with craftmanship.

We want genuine authenticity and creative flavours – and where better to experience this, than the Isles of Scilly. Whether you’re visiting the islands and sampling the produce or want to take it away and enjoy at home, you simply must try a flavour of the islands. Here are just a few of Scilly’s unique drinks available.

RUM

Carron Farm Distillery SC Dogs

Premium rum and vodka, distilled from centuries of island life on the Isles of Scilly. Stories have always flowed in the blood of the farmers and fishermen of St. Martin’s. Of shipwrecks and smuggling, sunshine and storms. Now, at the first and only rum distillery on the Isles of Scilly, the Walder family have distilled those stories, that heritage into SC Dogs premium spirits. Distilled, aged and bottled on the islands, SC Dogs is a range of delicately balanced premium rums and vodkas with a clean, rounded finish and a tang of the sea.

GIN

Westward Farm Scilly Gin

Bringing together some of the world’s finest botanicals, from Java and Africa to Scilly’s own fields. Aiden and his team gently vapour infuse in small stills with a pure grain spirit in tiny batches, producing just 28 bottles at a time, ensuring that none of the amazing flavours are lost. This small batch, single shot technique means that each batch is subtly unique, extracting the best of each botanical.

GIN

Scilly Spirit Island Gin

Distilled and bottled on St. Mary’s, the inspiration for this gin recipe dates to 1665 when the survivors of a ship, wrecked around Bishop Rock, were rescued by bold crew in pilot gig boats from St. Mary’s. Part of that ship’s rich cargo was pepper from Java for the Spice Trade, and so pepper is one of the six main botanicals plus juniper that make up this multi award winning Island Gin. For a unique experience, join a guided tour of the distillery at Old Town, St. Mary’s and create your own gin at the ‘Gin School’.

SOFT DRINKS

Carn Friars Farm Pear & Apple Juice

You’ll find Ang’s selection of fruits and jams – as well as popular apple juice from her 300-strong orchard – on an honesty stall towards the Eastern end of St. Mary’s. What could be better than buying direct from the farm itself? All the fruit is handpicked and sorted before being pressed and blended. They also produce cider using this method!

Fun fact #1: Seagrass meadows account for more than 10% of the ocean’s global carbon storage, whilst only covering around 0.1% of the ocean floor

Fun fact #2: Seagrass can absorb carbon up to 35x faster than Amazon rainforest! Fun fact #3: There are four species of seagrass in the UK; two species of tasselweeds and two zostera species, commonly known as eelgrass.

Fun fact #4: Seagrass can form dense underwater meadows, some of which are large enough to be seen from space!

SCILLY’S MAGICAL MEADOWS

with Steve Backshall and Nikki Banfield

When you hear the word “meadow”, where does your imagination take you? Summer days with a cooling breeze? Wide open spaces filled with long, waving grasses? Greens & yellows dappled with bright, vibrant wild flowers? Peaceful, never-ending blue skies and the sounds of nature?

What about the sea? Or, more specifically, under the sea? Did your mind take you there?

Many people aren’t aware that some of our most amazing UK meadows are actually under the sea and we have stunning ones here in Scilly. Guess what else? All of the descriptions above are, maybe surprisingly, relevant to them too!

We’re talking about Seagrass meadows and we want to raise their profile and show you just how special they are.

Seagrasses are different to seaweeds; they are the only flowering plants able to live in seawater and pollinate whilst submerged. Aptly nicknamed “the lungs of the sea”, seagrasses grow in shallow, sheltered marine environments and Scilly is home to one of the largest unbroken expanses of eelgrass | zostera marina (a species of seagrass) in England and Wales. This year, here at the Isles of Scilly Wildlife Trust, we want to raise awareness of, and learn more about, our underwater meadows and we’re doing this with the support of our awesome ambassadors Helen Glover and Steve Backshall (you might have heard of them!); and not only that we want you to help too!

Seagrasses produce oxygen, clean our coastal waters, absorb greenhouse emissions, are home to 1000’s of animal species, support the livelihoods of millions of people globally and help slow down and prevent coastal erosion, amongst many other things. They are amazing but don’t just take our word for it, here’s what Steve has to say about them… “Seagrasses are the most criminally underrated habitat in the UK, a wonderland that even the most ardent of British naturalists and aquanauts rarely visit. These aquatic meadows of true flowering grasses have none of the cachet of coral, kudos of kelp forests or childhood nostalgia of the rockpool. Yet as a diver and naturalist, I can honestly say some of my unexpected and awe-inspiring marine dreams have happened within the hypnotic waving stems of a seagrass field.” Cool eh?

Seagrass meadows, globally, are in decline. Since 1980, over 35% of the world’s seagrass meadows have been lost; equating to about 1.5% per year, or two football fields each hour. A rate of loss equal to that of coral reefs and rainforests, yet not as well publicised or known about (Project Seagrass). Although Scilly’s seagrass has been the subject of research and scrutiny for many years, we don’t necessarily have a full picture of its location or status, and with your help we might be able to change that!

Still not convinced? Let us hand you back to Steve to explain a bit more…

“Here in the UK, tasselweeds and eelgrass are one of the most important nurseries for baby marine creatures, and home to weird and wonderful wildlife so exotic as to seem impossible. To watch a cuttlefish flickering a staccato light display across its skin, before, turning black, then white then dashing for cover and literally becoming its background… to watch a flounder evading the attentions of a baby shark (doo doo doo doo doo doo) a pipefish scuttling away from a milky eyed cormorant… to watch a queen scallop clapping its shells like a Flamenco castanet to swim to safety… these are some of our most bewitching undersea sights. However, what every diver or snorkeller who heads to the seagrass really wants to see is a seahorse. The seahorse is a quirk of biology, and one of the most enigmatic and charismatic of all beasts. The two species we have in our seas (around the UK) are intricately carved, sensual in their movements, precious as any gem and as fragile as the seagrass beds they call home. But do we have them in Scilly?” During your explorations of our islands why not get involved with a bit of Citizen Science by helping us map our seagrass, whilst also keeping your eyes peeled for the

OUR ENDGAME WOULD BE TO GET THE PRECIOUS SEAGRASS BEDS OF SCILLY PROTECTED, FOR EVERYONE’S FUTURE.

Steve & Helen on St Mary’s

Seagrass Beds & Anemone © BareFoot Photographer

(Hippocampus guttulatus), attached to plastic seagrass © Alexander Mustard You can do this by downloading the Seagrass Spotter App, identifying the species that you have come across and logging your finds with the seagrass sightings tracker (this can all be done within the app). It’s really that simple! You’ll not only be helping to map the locations of our seagrass, but you’ll also be contributing to science and future conservation work across our islands; helping us to keep Scilly special! We all know that Scilly’s natural environment is hugely special for a wide range of reasons; but the natural environment is also highly fragile, and not as healthy as it might seem. It’s being destroyed at an historically unprecedented rate, with 41% of species having declined in the UK since 1970 (State of Nature Report 2019). We want to ensure that nature in Scilly has the best possible chance of defying global trends and the first steps in doing that are to raise awareness, increase knowledge and recognise the value of our precious natural world.

In the not-too-distant future we are hoping to create more opportunities for you to get involved whilst in Scilly; hopefully “swimming” alongside Isles of Scilly Wildlife Trust ambassadors Helen and Steve!

“As ambassadors to the Isles of Scilly Wildlife Trust, my wife Helen and I hope to lead snorkellers into the seagrass beds of Scilly for the first time. We’ll be hoping to find many of the wonders that call this environment home, hoping to educate about the value and vulnerability of seagrass. Our endgame would be to get the precious seagrass beds of Scilly protected, for everyone’s future.”

"Winning for Scilly Wildlife" is an exciting new way for "Winning for Scilly Wildlife" is an exciting new way for you to support the work of the Isles of Scilly Wildlife you to support the work of the Isles of Scilly Wildlife Trust whilst being in with the chance of winning Trust whilst being in with the chance of winning £25,000! £25,000!

You have a 1/63 chance of winning a prize and you can play as many times as you like each week. The more you play the more money is raised for the Isles of Scilly Wildlife Trust and protecting the very nature of Scilly.

Win:Win!

Find out more ios-wildlifetrust.org.uk/winning-for-scilly-wildlife

Isles of Scilly Wildlife Trust

@ScillyWildlife

Registered Charity Number: 1097807

Manx Shearwater

Shag Ocean sunfish

Common dolphin

Richard Nicholls Atlantic grey seal

Puffin

WILDLIFE & LANDMARKS

The crossing between mainland Penzance and St. Mary’s on the Isles of Scilly is teeming with wildlife and popular landmarks.

TOP TIP A good place to wildlife spot is near the Runnel Stone/Land’s End area and towards Wolf Rock. It’s where the wildlife feeds. Pete Crawford, Scillonian III Captain

Daymark What will you see on your journey? Tick the ones you see!