IV

Out to Sea

On such a lovely morning the adventure seemed full of promise and in a very short time we were conscious of being in a new world. It is difficult to explain how deep the meaning in these last words. Two elements composed it, I think: the first, the novelty of being on the ocean making for anchorages we had never seen, assisted by small-scale charts we were unaccustomed to read, for the truth (as may have been gathered) was that neither of us knew anything about navigation or the handling of any craft beyond a row-boat; the second, the strangeness, the wonder, the beauty of the scene itself. We had both travelled in steamers and I still have a vivid memory of the mountains of North Africa rising out of the sea (with their suggestion of elephants and tropic jungles and hinterlands of burning sand), but never—and I had visited the Hebrides and traversed their length and breadth a few times—had natural features and atmospheric effects combined to make of the world, as far as the eye could reach, a place of such still enchantment that at moments its beauty was profoundly sad.

The clear blue of the overhead sky passed into the haze of the horizon out of which the hills rose in dim purple, full of distance and legendary peace. I had never realised how mountainous Harris was, and I gazed at the Clisham, on whose steep road an insignificant buzzing figure on a motorbike had once nearly broken his neck. Southward the eye caught the saddle-back of Ben Lee and the cone of Ben Eval in North Uist. South of that, Hecla, Beinn Mhor, and the hills towards Loch Boisdale in South Uist. And finally, remote, out of the mist, a nipple against the sky, insubstantial, inclined to vanish, that could only be Heaval in Barra. Land outlines and sea inlets in between were guessed at or perhaps imagined, so uncertain were they in the opalescent haze.

Above these lands, at no great height, hung a continuous ridge of puffed-out cloud, like the angel clouds in Renaissance pictures. Their whiteness had an internal warmth, a suggestion of pink, that tinted the sea to a gleaming hue, and the water undulated slowly like sheeted iron. A similar cumulus formation hung over Skye, but there it was Arctic white, like puffed-out snow, while the land beneath faded away in sunbright haze.

The water changed continuously in colour, and over its vast waste birds worked singly or in little coveys, black guillemots, large guillemots, puffins, fulmars, while a single gull made us feel truly at sea by following us from side to side and sometimes passing overhead and throwing a startling shadow on our hands.

As we came abreast of the Ascrib Isles, we passed quite close to a school of basking sharks. Their triangular dorsal fins, showing full above the water, looked like the mainsails of miniature yachts, only the fins were black and moved to some other caprice than the wind’s. They cut in and out in sudden swirling circles as if they were playing an amusing game or worrying some hidden life to death.

But within this visible world, I was haunted by my own particular worry, and every now and then I got up and felt the circulating pipes and cylinder heads. Occasionally new noises developed to my ear, thuds and thumps and queer irregular beats. Yet the engine was going steadily and I was afraid to experiment either by giving her more throttle or moving the ignition lever. We had left Duntulm at 10.30 a.m. and at 12.7 Waternish Point was abeam, so we were doing about six knots, and if in that time we had had the last of an ebbing tide in our favour, on the other hand we were towing a dinghy which though small was heavy. I was not dissatisfied. With the broad entrance to Loch Snizort behind us, the first step in our journey had been taken. It was a new anchorage now, whatever happened. At last we had won through the web of circumstance, with its decisions and clinging obstructions, into freedom. We set a course for Dunvegan Head, which lay in the sea like an immense squatting animal with its snub nose out of the water.

As we came abreast of Loch Dunvegan, still going steadily, I abandoned my half-formed plan of entering and anchoring between the islands of Mingay and Isay, where there is good shelter, as a Waternish man had told me, and where we could have devoted the rest of the day to getting things shipshape, particularly in the piled-up mess that was the cabin. To tell the truth, I did not care to let the Crew remain in the cabin while the engine was going. I did not feel like taking any chances until I knew my mechanism a bit better, for I could still see very vividly the flash of that naked tongue of flame over a wildly flooding carburettor when we had started her up in the morning. There was a hatch over the forecastle, through which one could push up on to the deck in an emergency, but in the event of such an emergency arising it might not be altogether wise to complicate its pattern with fore-hatch acrobatics.

Moreover the day was fine, and all that wild shore, with its towering basaltic cliffs, that forms the north-west coast of Skye, might be a good place to get round while the going was good, particularly as it is exposed on the south-west to the full force of the prevailing swells and provides no sheltering anchorage of any kind.

I asked the Crew how she felt about it. She smiled and turned away, and all in a moment I saw she was so sick with excitement that her dry lips refused to come adrift.

The sea’s depth had got her, a depth so near that she could have leaned over and put her fingers into it; and nothing between her and it but thin planking upon which some hundredweights of defective metal beat its devil’s tatoo. A sense of insecurity so awful, so imminent, that sheer sick apprehension kept her head up—lest she see the distant bottom too clearly. And for the rest, she had absolute reason to have confidence neither in the navigator nor the boat.

Some understanding of this came upon me in a wave, and I laughed. She had encouraged me in my mad courses! And I could see by that smile that she was not giving in now. It was faint perhaps, a trifle wan, but game. I rallied her, pointing out our perfect security. The day was so fine that if the boat sank under us, we could row ashore in the dinghy. But she moved my talk aside and pointed to a great dark-hulled steam yacht, her varnished lifeboats swung out on their davits, now coming out of Dunvegan Loch. We watched until we could clearly see three white caps on the bridge and the steady stare of faces that must have wondered and smiled. The Crew gave a salute, and three caps were lifted. The courtesy of ships that pass on the high seas!

The yacht disappeared towards the distant haze of Harris, and we settled back into our own world. The sun was very hot and we took off our jackets. I brought the compass into use for the first time. I had had to stand to see over the high deck of the cabin. I now got the bearing of Dunvegan Head on the compass and sitting in a corner of the low cockpit extended one arm along the tiller and the other along the rail. The Crew made herself comfortable in the other corner.

Never in my wildest dreams had I imagined so perfect a day, so full of wonder. It was as if we were floating on a coloured bubble. There was that air of the intangible, the incredible. And at odd moments it did bring a feather of something to the throat.

We played games at trying to name the colours of our enchanted world, but it was a difficult game that tended to pass into long silences. Every now and again I rose to see that nothing was in our way, then subsided.

Shortly after two o’clock we were abreast of Dunvegan Head; then laying our course on Meall a Veg Head, I decided the time had come when we must make up our minds where we were going.

We settled on Loch Bracadale, in the west of Skye, and for anchorage on Portnalong at the entrance to Loch Harport. The name Portnalong was quite new to me, and our decision here, as in all other cases, was reached after a study of the chart and the Sailing Directions. Never had either of us any personal knowledge to go upon. A rough calculation showed that we could not hope to arrive much before six o’clock. I increased the oil drip-feed of the engine for luck. Neither of us worried about a set meal. The Crew spread out biscuits, cream cheese, and a cupful of milk in the cockpit. I ate with relish and she with deliberation, while the rocks moved slowly past and the sound of the engine was almost forgotten.

The sun beat down upon us and upon the sea yet not glaringly but, as it were, modified by the distant sombre haze. There was induced, too, an insidious lightness of the head, not unpleasant, a sort of etherialised intoxication due in some measure, I suspect, to eddying whiffs from the engine! The roar of the engine in that world of ineffable quietude became itself a comment of the purest fantasy—for which there could be no acknowledgment but a smile.

As we passed the ‘Merchant’, a basaltic column near the head, Neist Point lighthouse stood out before us and the Crew became interested in the magnificent rock formations that rose up one behind another in varying degrees of shadow and light. She got her camera ready and we debated the question of exposure, for with a calm sea under a clear sky we recognised that there must be a tremendous amount of light about, far more than there could ever be on any landscape. The camera does make one look at things, though whether one gets it to reproduce what one sees is entirely another matter! And those white fingers of light that man has set up to guide him round the danger spots on his charted seas can have a remarkable fascination, for there is something more than a facile symbolism here. Enterprise, endurance, a continuous vigilance. If there is anything amongst the works of man that may conceivably give him a feeling of pride, even of nobility, it is surely a lighthouse. There was no movement about Neist Point lighthouse, yet we felt human eyes watching us. The white paint and strong clean lines, set upon the dark rock, had a fine austerity. The Crew had an impulse to salute with her horn that watchtower as we passed, but she did not dare.

Suddenly I observed seaweed around us, floating masses of it here and there, in a sort of vast still pool, and did not know what to make of it. I grew a trifle anxious about the propeller, wondered even over the possibility of submerged rocks, as I steered between the masses. Yet I was certain there could be no rocks, so certain that I had to make sure by a quick glance at the chart—and there, opposite Neist Point with its orange spot for the lighthouse, I read: ‘Streams meet or separate.’ The westernmost point of Skye, where the tides divide or meet. We were certainly at sea! So we had another smile, as the weed fell behind us, and the lighthouse.

All the coast we had hitherto passed was quite clean, but now between Neist Point and Idrigill Point, a reef of broken rock ran out into the sea for a mile and a half. I tried to work out the state of the tide here, for the Sailing Directions discussed in cable lengths possible passages between the Big and the Little Mibow Rocks; but decided finally to stand out round Dubh Sgeir, the outermost rock, and take no chances, consoling myself with the thought that by so doing we should lose very little distance in making Loch Bracadale. Yet I had the urge to try those rocks. Indeed this desire to attempt difficult passages for the first time grew with the days, and is, I should say, one of the finer pleasures of cruising. But I did not know yet what I could do with my engine, and moreover I here discovered for the first time how woefully insufficient is a small-scale chart for inshore navigation. I could not make out the lie of the rocks properly, nor could I draw up, as it were, by the roadside and explore the surrounding territory, but must keep on ploughing ahead at six knots.

Dubh Sgeir was unmistakable for I knew it should show sixteen feet clear at top of the stream. A light breeze was now darkening the waters to blue, but the day remained perfect.

Abreast of Dubh Sgeir, and quite close to it, the Crew got a real fright, for the engine missed a beat or two, spluttered, and then, without any attention, re-established the one-two-three-four. Everything had gone so well that she had begun to forget the uncertainties on which we depended.

And the rock, as its name told (Black Rock), was black enough, black as coal, with a small-columnar formation that looked at once fascinating and sinister. I could hardly take my eyes off it. Seabirds used it for resting. Cormorants had dived off it as we approached. In a regular sou’-wester it must stir up a devil’s broth. ‘I wouldn’t go any closer,’ said the Crew. Whereupon the first missed beat came dramatic as a hammer stroke.

Now I began to look for the Macleod’s Maidens. Long before we had reached the reef, we had seen three rocks of curious formation inshore, not very big-looking, in fact so slight against the cliffs that I had thought them the inner end of the reef itself. But they had receded as we came up, and with the reef behind us were still two or three miles ahead. They were in fact close to Idrigill Point and proved to be Macleod’s Maidens, those three basaltic columns that rise sheer out of the sea. We stood in to have a good look at them.

The largest was like an oversize statue of Queen Victoria, well bustled behind, rather than any sea maiden of a clan chief; but the two smaller ones were maidenly enough, one stooped a little as in meditation. It was only when we discovered that Queen Victoria was two hundred feet high, and the others each a hundred feet, that we properlyrealised how massive were the cliff-walls, reaching at one place to over six hundred feet, against which we had sailed most of the day. The Crew surveyed them from all angles while I steered for Wiay Island in the entrance to Loch Bracadale. Beyond the cliffs of Wiay lay Oronsay Island, with its face of rock like the wall of a medieval fortress, complete with arched door in the centre. I gave the two low spits that run out from this island a respectable berth and then headed for Ardtreck Point, round which should lie Portnalong and our anchorage.

Meantime the Crew was drawing my attention to many things—a habit she developed as the days went on, and a not unpleasant one, for there was as a rule plenty of time to contemplate the unusual. And the grass that rippled over Wiay and Oronsay had certainly the velvet-like texture of a living skin, while the sheep that clung so precariously to the very edges of the precipices might readily be mistaken for small grey boulders.

‘Do they ever fall off?’

‘Oh, a few of them now and again. Their thrill. And the bite just beyond reach—pretty sweet. As a sheep, would you have an urge to get such a bite?’

‘As a sheep, I have had such an urge in my time,’ she replied, looking at me pointedly. She was picking up!

I told her to keep her eyes on her work, as we were now about to perform something that might be very much more exciting to us than standing on a cliff-edge is to a sheep.

‘What is that?’

‘We are about to come to our first anchorage,’ I replied.

At that, sobered by imagination, she stuck her head into the chart. ‘Is that Ardtreck Point?’

‘What else can it be?’

‘Is Portnalong round that?—it isn’t named on the chart.’

‘No’, I answered, ‘but it’s named in the Sailing Directions: read it out again.’

So she read what was there printed thus: ‘Sheltered anchorage, except for a short carry from the east, in four faths. close in-shore. This bay is free of dangers, and affords splendid anchorage to W. of pier, the holding ground being very good. The pier shows a fix. red It.

‘STORES. Small store. P.O. mile up road. No Tel. WATER. Tap behind shed at head of Pier.’

‘It seems queer to think that all that’s round that point. Do you think it is?’

‘I doubt it,’ I answered.

‘What’ll I have to do?’

‘Wait till you get your orders.’ And then I remembered she had not been with me when I was told two very impressive stories about Skyemen coming back with motor boats for the first time from Gairloch or some other near spot on the mainland.

‘The trouble was the same in both cases,’ I explained: ‘no member of either crew had thought of finding out how to stop the engine. When the first crew reached their home bay, they were sure only of one thing: when the petrol was all used up the engine must stop. So round and round and round the bay they sailed her, all through the night and into the morning, while the folk on shore kept watch, until the strange brute stopped at last, and they rowed to land.’

‘That’s not true?’

‘But the second crew, going to a different place, were not so patient. They surveyed the hot whirling roaring mass with cold unfriendly eyes. Moreover, what if the thing never stopped? What if it never stopped at all? They considered the matter gravely, for if they touched some little sticking-out thing, what guarantee had they that they wouldn’t get some awful shock or that the whole thing wouldn’t whirl into flying bits that would sink her? After all, they knew it was as strong as sixteen horses. And even fourteen horses are no joke, as we know. So it was a very real problem to them. And in the end they solemnly decided the only thing to do was to smother the whole sixteen at once. “We’ll try it whatever,” said the skipper calmly, and when each man had his suit of oilskins bunched against his stomach, he gave the word to fall on, and the five of them fell bodily upon the mechanism, jamming home the oilskins as they did so. The sixteen horses gave one gasping cough and died. The men stood back. “That seems to have settled them,” said the skipper. “You can get out the oars.”’

‘Did Eoin tell you those stories?’ asked the Crew.

‘Well, maybe he did,’ I admitted.

She kept on laughing, but half in excitement, for here we were at Ardtreck Point (as in Admiralty chart; but Ru aird Tearc in Sailing Directions), and now we were round it, and there in front of us—the bay and the very pier itself.

The Clyde Cruising Club had worked its big magic!

It was a moment for belief in man’s—but gratitude was knocked out of me by the Crew, who, all sea-depths forgotten, was crying to me to look at Portnalong against the Cuillin. I looked, and in that afternoon sunlight it was indeed one of the prettiest sights I had ever seen. The scattered white-washed croft houses ascended the green slopes from the pier and were backed by the Cuillin at full stretch, each jagged peak cut clear against the sky. It might have been an arrangement by some giant theatrical producer, who went in not only for impressive effects but for light and happiness. But the Crew could not get her camera on it because of the mast and stays in the field of vision—and this was part of the job for which she had signed on—yet at the moment I could do nothing to help her, for I was all alert and more than a trifle excited myself. If there is one fool who justly calls down upon himself the derision of all onlookers it is the skipper who makes a landlubber’s mess of coming to anchor. I knew this in my bones, but I had no knowledge at all of how the engine was going to help me. And I could take no risks. Nor could the Crew be of any assistance. While ducking my head into the cabin to get at the controls I, of course, lost sight of where I was going. And these controls! But with a quick spanner I did get her slowed down a very little, and then stood in for the ‘splendid anchorage to W. of pier’. I decided to try to get into neutral in good time—yet not too early, lest the engine stop altogether. The moment came. ‘Keep her going like that,’ I said, and ducked, caught the gear handle, and pulled—and pulled—and tugged—and wrenched—and swore—with every ounce of energy I had, but the handle refused to budge. There was nothing for it but to shut off the petrol. I did so, and before she had right stopped I was on top of the house and beside the anchor, which I had all ready to drop. She lost way more quickly than I had expected, and when the anchor got a hold she swung to it slowly. Not at all bad—except perhaps that we were a trifle nearer the pier than I had wanted to be, for I reckoned we were in about four fathoms of water (the chain was not marked) and I should have to pay out about ten fathoms for comfort, which would mean a fair swing. Two or three small boats anchored just inside the pier had attracted me, and I hailed a grey-bearded man working with a net in one of them and asked if I was all right. He said I might be all right but it would be better if I went ‘west a bit’.

Very good—west I would go. I fitted an extension piece on to the gear handle. The Crew had a long-handled floor brush. With the brush as battering ram, I let drive at the extension piece. At the second shock, it gave. (I should have used a heavy hammer on the drive-coupling, but I did not know that then.) I fed and swung the engine; went aloft and heaved the anchor; put her into gear to go west a bit, and after a few revolutions tried to get her out of gear. She stuck. I tugged and wrenched—and again had to shut her off and vault forward. The fisherman was already signalling me to stop. As if it were a simple business I I dropped the anchor—indeed in my haste I threw it—overboard. She swung to it, however. Had I gone a bit too far? Couldn’t be much for we were still nearer the pier than the opposing side of the little bay. The fisherman stood looking at us, silent. I paid out chain, made all fast, and sat until the gentle north-easterly wind got the high tide lapping about us. Then I joined the Crew. As we looked around we felt pleased with ourselves, and, taking everything into consideration, a little incredible. It could blow now if it liked! We had arrived.