Family selling 'idyllic' island with ruined castle after 80 years
"Quite often over the years we've had to go Corryvreckan with a boat laden with sheep, so that's led to some exciting journeys," Mr Gully said.
Over the past 12 years the island has been managed by Rob and Kathryn James, who live full-time on Shuna, but their plan to move into another role prompted the family to consider selling up.
Viewings start later this week, but in the meantime regular visitors are securing their stays for the rest of the year.
"It's been a huge part for all of our lives and definitely sad that all of that is coming to an end, but tinged with relief for my father that it's going to be slightly easier not having to manage all of that and getting over to the island three or four times a week," Mr Gully said.
The castle was built with "no expense spared" by New Zealand-born adventurer George Alexander MacLean Buckley in 1911, just three years after he joined an Antarctic voyage on Nimrod with Ernest Shackleton.
The castle blueprints, and the architect who designed them, are believed to have been on the Titanic's fateful voyage.
Sothebys International Realty
"He was about to export the plans to America and build a lot more of them," Mr Gully said.
"The plans for it went down with the Titanic and stopped lots of flat-roofed castles being built in America."
The castle fell to ruins in the 1980s when its upkeep became too costly.
"I lived in there for my first 10 years and I can look in the old bedroom window and see the room where we were taught by my grandparents - it's all very fresh in the memory," Mr Gully recalled.
He said the children were taught "maths, English and lateral thinking" in the mornings, then "booted out" to explore the island.
By then the family was using only about a quarter of the castle as the rest of it was beginning to fall down.
"When we were moving the furniture around the room to find the bits where it wouldn't fall through the floor, you knew your days were numbered," Mr Gully said.
He added: "It still looks very impressive even though there are trees growing out of the windows."
Jim Gully
There have been human settlements on Shuna, one of the Slate Islands, for at least 4,500 years, evidenced by Stone and Iron Age burial mounds and ruined farms and houses.
Limekilns from the 18th and 19th Centuries remain dotted around the island and it is estimated that there was a population of about 80 people between 1750 and 1850.
Visitors to the island's six holiday homes, which can house up to 52 people and are powered by sustainable energy supplies, are normally taken on a 20-minute boat trip from the pier at Arduaine on the mainland, but the island also has a helipad.
The estate agents suggested the property, one of two islands named Shuna near Oban, is "perfectly suited" to multi-generational living, a boutique hospitality venture or a "wellness destination".
