George Orwell famously described Jura as "an extremely un-get-at-able place".

George Orwell famously described Jura as "an extremely un-get-at-able place".

But not yesterday. It took just 45 minutes for the new high-speed passenger ferry to leave the mainland at Tayvallich and sweep down Loch Sween and out across the Sound of Jura to the island where Orwell wrote his masterpiece, 1984.

The operators, Islay Sea Safari, are providing the first direct ferry service to the mainland since 1972 when a MacBrayne's boat called at Craighouse Pier, Jura's main settlement, for the last time.

The new 600hp speedboat, which takes 12 passengers at £15 each way, allows the 200 islanders to get to the mainland and into Lochgilphead in an hour-and-a-half, courtesy of a connecting bus.

Before the service started in June it would take islanders up to five hours to get to the same destination. They would have to go over to the neighbouring island of Islay to catch the Caledonian MacBrayne ferry to Kennacraig from Port Ellen or Port Askaig, a crossing which itself takes more than two hours. This would then be followed by a bus journey to Lochgilphead.

The £185,000 service was officially launched yesterday and islanders gathered to welcome the ferry and hold an official ceremony in the island's hall just above the new pontoons.

Jura's residents see the service as a symbol of their island's regeneration. None more so than crofter Maggie Boyle, whose parents came to Jura from Donegal in 1948 to work on Ardlussa Estate.

"They came for six months and stayed all their lives. We were all born and brought up here, but the island went through some low times," she said. "Its population (which was 1000 in the 19th century) dropped to around 120.

"But there is definitely a feeling that the island is on the way back. The population is back to 200, new crofts have been created and others are in the pipeline. The start of this new ferry will mean the progress continues."

She said it was not only economically important that more tourists came to the island, but it was socially important that islanders had a direct link with the mainland.

Robin Currie, local councillor, agreed. "Very few island communities have to cross another island to get to and from the mainland," he said. "But that is the disadvantage that Jura has suffered for so long. Now people can go to Oban and be back the same day. That's a huge improvement."

Eight years ago the fragility of the community was recognised by the Scottish Office when it was designated an Initiative at the Edge area. In a subsequent survey more than 80% of the island's population identified a direct service to the mainland as a priority.

The islanders enthusiastically embraced the chance for a passenger service.

Dick Mayes, chairman of Jura's Initiative at the Edge committee, said yesterday: "Improved transport links are absolutely fundamental to any sustained recovery in Jura's fortunes, even though it is only going to run from April till the end of September. We carried 173 passengers last week, which is an average seven per trip. That exceeds what we hoped for."

Public funding bodies such as Highlands and Islands Enterprise, Argyll and Bute Council and Europe are committed to funding the project for three years.

But Mr Mayes is confident. "It has already carried 600 passengers since the middle of June and if the traffic continues to build in the way it has then the ferry could be paying for itself in a few years' time."

The ferry is operated by Islay's Nicol MacKinnon and his father Donnie, who worked on the old MacBrayne's steamer Lochiel which served Islay and Jura for 30 years.