Sule Skerry

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Sule Skerry
Location
Sule Skerry
Sule Skerry shown within Scotland.
OS grid reference:	HX621244
Names
Gaelic name:
Area and Summit
Area:
Highest elevation:
Population
Population (2001):	0
Groupings
Island Group:	North Atlantic
Local Authority:	Orkney

References:	^[1]^[2]^[3]

Sule Skerry is an extremely remote skerry in the North Atlantic off the north coast of Scotland.

Sule Skerry lies 60 kilometres west of the Orkney Mainland at grid reference HX621244. Sule Skerry's sole neighbour, Sule Stack, lies 10km to the southwest. The remote islands of Rona and Sula Sgeir lie further to the west.

Sule Skerry is 16ha in area and about 0.8 kilometres long along its length. There is a lighthouse at the northern tip of the island and a cairn at the southern tip.

According to the Guinness Book of Records, the Sule Skerry lighthouse was most remote manned lighthouse in Great Britain from its opening in 1895 to its automation in 1982. Its remote location meant that construction could only take place during the summer, thus it took from 1892-94 to complete.

A meteorological buoy used Met Office's Marine Automatic Weather Station (MAWS) Network is located off Skule Skerry. Results from the buoy are used in the Shipping Forecast.

Sule Skerry together with Sule Stack are listed as a Special Protection Area as they are home during the breeding season to thousands of puffins and gannets and smaller numbers of the rarer Leach's Storm Petrel and Storm Petrels.

Sule Skerry and Sule Stack are both a part of the Orkney Islands.