Maid of the Forth makes up to three trips to Inchcolm a day in the summer season, depending on tides. The trip takes three hours altogether. You pass under the Forth Rail bridge, see the islands in the Firth, and land on Inchcolm, an atmospheric island with a ruined Augustinian abbey and lots of sea-birds.
The ruins include some important rooms which survive nearly intact: an octagonal chapter house; a refectory with reading alcove (great acoustics in both); and the dormitory and calefactory.
www.dpro.co.uk/maid/index.shtml
www.cyberscotia.com/inchcolm/
Updates
There is also a new boat service called Forth Tours, which started in summer 2006. We took a lovely cruise in August and saw seals and puffins. The boat is brand new and they also do salsa cruises on a Friday night with food, which are brilliant fun. They also run cruises to Inchcolm and Wildlife Explorer trips.
Check them out at: www.forthtours.com
The comment about the Forth Tours is not actually true, although this is a new business to the river Forth, the boat is in fact around 40 years old, at least according to the captain when I visited in September last year. I was very disappointed by the trip as there seemed to be some confusion over the tides and when we got to Inchcolm they were unable to land us on the Island!!!! When we got back to South Queensferry, again we were unable to land at the pier due to the tide and ended up being stuck out on the boat for 1 hr 30min.
I have been on the Maid of the Forth on a few occasions and thought I would try out this new service, I was very disappointed and will not be back. Will be going back to using the Maid of The Forth the next time I am in Edinburgh and want to visit Inchcolm Island.
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