A man who cut short an attempt to set a new record for living on Rockall has been unable to recover his survival gear after high waves made it unsafe to do so.
Chris “Cam” Cameron had hoped to stay for up to two months on the island, which is situated 230 miles (370km) west of the Outer Hebrides in the north Atlantic, and raise £50,000 for military charities. In late June, after living there for 30 days, he was forced to call for an emergency evacuation after enduring days of severe weather.
Earlier this week, Cameron and two colleagues sailed back to Rockall in an attempt to recover hundreds of kilos of survival gear, including the Landpod module used as shelter, which remained bolted and lashed to the granite.
However, Cameron, the radio operator Adrian “Nobby” Styles and the Bulgarian mountaineer Emil Bergmann were beaten back by a heavy swell on Tuesday, as substantial waves broke against the 17-metre-high rock’s sheer sides.
The team sailed back empty-handed on the yacht Taeping, anchoring overnight off Mull in the inner Hebrides, and were expected to reach port in Oban on Friday.
Bergmann posted an image of a wave crashing against the rock on the expedition’s Facebook page on Friday morning. “We reach the Rockall well, but the waves extremely high … That’s the way of life,” he wrote. “We went back, so we have the chance to go back again.”
Bergmann and Styles stayed with Cameron on Rockall for the first three days, receiving more than 7,000 calls from radio hams around the world, before leaving him to try to reach the occupation record on his own. The record, which stands at 45 days, was set by Nick Hancock in 2014.
For radio enthusiasts, Rockall is one of the rarest locations in the world because it is so seldom occupied. The expedition sold specially designed cards called QSL cards to those who made contact, to raise funds.
The trio had hoped briefly to broadcast from the rock again this week. Cameron has raised £15,000 so far for ABF, the Soldiers’ Charity and the Royal Navy and Royal Marines Charity.
In a WhatsApp message sent from the yacht, Cameron said they would try again to clear the rock of his equipment.
“Yes, intend to attempt again next month and keep going til we get it off. We are committed to this. Too dangerous this time. It would have killed us, but we’ll keep going back until the mission is complete,” he said.
