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circle

6.30 pm, 66°13’13″N. An Arctic tern wings past the sun, which is high in the west above a row of bunched fluffy grey clouds. A broad platinum path blazes to the horizon beneath it. The east wind is getting colder and the mountains behind it increasingly snow-covered: an unending panorama of tiny pointed peaks, uplifting and continually startling to look at. Ahead loom the Træna islands, steep bumps growing ominously; one island a single jagged fang, almost frightening to look at.

9.35 pm, 66°28’54″N. The wind has picked up to about fifteen knots and we’re flying along at well over six. Up, up we go, over the surface of the rounded world, the minutes of latitude rushing by our hull.

9.45 pm, 66°30’0″N. We’re looking into the Arctic now, past the sharp teeth of Træna, towards distant ranges of snowy peaks, whipped like icing on a Christmas cake. A slight yellow glow warms their north-west-facing hollows as the sun slowly gravitates across the sky; as we ride north to greet it.

10.08 pm, 66°33’02″N. I sit with the handheld GPS and watch the numbers tick upwards.

10.14pm, 66°33’48″N. We have crossed the Arctic Circle! The sun lies behind a bank of grey cloud in the north-west with small scraps of cloud below it outlined in livid gold. A patch of rainbow hangs in front of the mountains to the east, the sharp peaks beyond all softened by the sun’s rosy-tinged touch. Ahead, above the northern horizon, a clear band of sky stretches like a luminous yellow promise. We sail on towards it.

foredeck and mainmast of boat on cold sea with pale yellow light on the far horizon ahead

Norwegian Sea
8th June 2017

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Sàil Ghorm

a maniacal butterfly
and a bee bombing about
and my limbs aching in their driving desire

in the drenching blue sun
in the scouring white wind

on the stones
on the bones
on the bare back of Scotland

close rough grey textured stone with mountains in the blue distance

Quinag / A’ Chuinneag, Assynt, Scotland
5th May 2015

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kindliness

Sea of the Hebrides: The skipper often comments on how sea-kindly Ara’ Deg is, how well her hull is shaped for the sea. Slim-bodied and long-keeled, she rides the water gracefully, large seas as well as calmer ones, maintaining direction and momentum and moving with and round the waves rather than against them.

Sailing in Ara’ Deg, we become sea-kindly too, the sea abrading the hard edges we’ve built up on land, gradually smoothing and softening us. As it always does, lapping and licking with gentle admonishing waves or relentlessly pounding us under steep surges of nausea, the sea wears us down, breaching our resistance, until we are humbler and kinder, until we are less.

Lochinver harbour: The sea smooths but the wind sharpens, tearing strips off us and whittling the edges of our words until their slightest glance will draw blood. We’ve come in from the open sea and are tied up to a dock but the wind screams through, cold and shearing and unrelenting. And so we lie here, straining at our ropes, underslept and restless, waiting for a lull, waiting for kindness to return.

Castlebay to Lochinver
2nd May 2017

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Castlebay

on a calm mooring
on a calm morning

Castle Bay, Barra, Western Isles, Scotland / Bàgh a’ Chaisteil, Barraigh, Eilean Siar, Alba
22nd April 2017

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northward

We’re hanging out here with the eiders and oystercatchers, the heron and a few noisy gulls. We’re waiting for our flu to subside, for the winds to shift, for the tide to turn. And when they do, we’ll be gone again, north again, hopefully further north than we’ve ever been before.

The sun’s cool and golden now, settling slowly behind the various western peninsulas of the mainland. Will it be thinner in the north or more substantial? And what will we be? Still light-driven nomads of sorts, I guess. As I suppose we all are, continually moving in time if not geography, forever following the sun.

Ettrick Bay, Bute, Scotland
10th April 2017