Rua Fiola is a small and remote island on the west coast of Scotland.
It is uninhabited except for a small centre built by the owner Torquil Johnson Ferguson so that he could run outward bound courses for children.
Rua Fiola Courses
Torquil has been running Rua Fiola courses for boys and girls aged 9 to 16 since 1975. The courses are a week long and involve a wide range of activities.
The guests are split up into four groups who do one activity in the morning and one in the afternoon. Each group gets a total of two sessions of kayaking, three sessions of rock sports (climbing and abseiling) and one session of fishing. During free time there are a number of unscheduled activities including: swimming, trampolining, bird watching, exploring the island and playing in the mud pit.
Apart from the activities the courses also includes the expedition and the survival challenge.
Expedition is where each of the four groups and their instructors are given some food and go and spend the night in a cave or bivouac on one of the nearby uninhabited islands.
Survival is what the course is all about, everyone is left, either on their own or with up to five friends, on an uninhabited island for 19 hours without food or water. There are lectures on safety, first aid, shelter building and finding food in the evenings leading up to survival. A system of strobes and flags allows instructors to be called in if need be and the average response time of the instructors is under six minutes.