Posted on

Easdale

We sailed not far from Easdale last summer. We were going to sail right in and anchor by the island but, as we drew out from Colonsay and glided along its east coast, clouds began to gather in the distance ahead and, by the time we reached Colonsay’s northern tip, the Firth of Lorn looked dark and ominous. The wind had moved round too and was bearing down upon us and the sun was shining in the west, so we changed course and sailed into the sunset instead.

This year we were again going to sail there but our boat was in the north and the winds were from the south, so instead I took a collection of cars, buses and ferries to arrive, crossing the final short stretch of sea in cold windy rain.

I came to visit friends and took shelter in their cosy cottage with a cup of tea until the rain eased off and we set off round the island with wellies and children, sliding over the slate-heaped beaches and exhilarating in the wild washing of the waves over the sharp serrated lines of rock.

A big mist was still hanging around the coast but bits of brightness were starting to seep through and, as the others trailed slowly round the path, I quickly climbed the lumpy slice of hill. The island from up here looked astonishing, a strange gouged-out darkness with whiteness and lights crashing all along its shattered shores. As the air gradually cleared, the whole cauldron of island-ringed water beyond stretched itself out – to Seil, Luing, Scarba, Jura, Islay, the Garvellachs, Colonsay, Mull. I let myself drift out to meet them, following their rising rims, slowly navigating them in my imagination and last summer’s memory.

I was in a gentle dream; but as I picked my way back down the hill and ran the thin path round the north of the island to catch up with the others, I was caught by the quarry pools. They were so deep, so still, so blue, they seemed to gather into them all the wide distance of the waters outside, and to concentrate all their colour. I stopped at one, then another, then another – the deepest blue of all. A fine drizzle soaked into my skin as I stood gazing down and in.

Eventually I pulled myself away and now I stand in a glowing pink evening at the back shore staring out over that island-rimmed horizon. The wind comes across the waters, breaking them in white froth on the dark slate at my feet, but still my eyes are in the deep blue quarry pool on the other side of the island where all the wet world is, secretly, hidden and held.

deep blue quarry pool on Easdale

Easdale, Argyll, Scotland
7th July 2014

Posted on

on the hard

Ara' Deg on the hard

Our boat is out of the water now and we live poised on a slim keel. Winds bring a subtle rocking motion as our fibreglass hull shivers and flexes on its stand, and my mind invents or imagines more movement, having accustomed itself to living in the slow shudders of the sea.

All my instincts tell me it’s unnatural to be perched up here, high and dry, set on a slivered wedge of fibreglass and ballast, held up by five thin metal supports. We sit on reclaimed – or recreated – land too, a concrete boatyard filling in what used to be a fine sheltered curve in the bay.

I can see the water from here though, pale under the night sky beyond the fishing boats and harbour wall; and across the loch, behind the lumpy hills, the bright rose of the northern sunset glows steadily. Suilven rises on the other side of us, a visible lump in the starboard portlites, marking our position here, on this concrete plain between the hills and the sea.

Its presence eases my disorientation and as I get my bearings Ara’ Deg slowly starts to become a home again. The streamlined bulge of her hull shelters our rusty bike and the tools for whatever boat job we’re currently working on, and there’s space for our car parked neatly beside. Hoses and electrical cords wind their way across the yard to her various openings, and we fix and clean and paint her, in anticipation of her saltwater return.

Ara’ Deg herself seems to be in no rush though and, as she adapts to her new surroundings, they adapt themselves to her. A hooded crow took up position first, cawing loudly from the top of the main mast our first morning here, and a collared dove sat calmly on our lifelines for a while one eve. This afternoon I found a sparrow clinging to the rope I had tied to the halyard to stop its blocks clanking against the mast, and swallows are constantly zipping around us in graceful forked swoops.

From up here I can also see – and hear – more of the five raucous herons which nest in the crowns of the conifers atop the rockface that backs this yard. And there are mammals too. Rabbits hop around in the twilight and, at various times of day, a young stag – just a couple of inches of velvet antler beginning to branch – wanders by, pulling at the tiny trees that are springing up by the fences and harbour outbuildings.

These are not creatures I am used to seeing from a boat, and they are welcome. Not so much the midges though, and I take to our new oars and little shell of a tender to escape them and to get my heartsful of the water which I miss living on. It comforts me to get glimpses of my familiar marine companions too – the blond-faced seal, the cormorant, and the vomit-splashes of jellyfish drifting beneath me in the blue, for these are mostly sunny days here, on the concrete, on the sea.

Lochinver harbour, Assynt, Scotland
10th June 2014

Posted on

out on the breakwater

A few gulls call, Spanish or French fishermen drop fish crates into their rusty boat, the bulging moon rises. Suilven and Canisp rise beside it, and on either side of me, long lumpy heathered lands reach out into a rippling glassy sea.

Although I have no permanent abode, I am here.

I look around, and glance back to our boat, which is rolling gently beside the floating docks, secured by woven ropes wound onto cleats by my lover’s hands.

We are always held by something.

Lochinver harbour, Assynt, Scotland
19th May 2014

Posted on

Suilven

Suilven is looking at me, or at least that how it feels lately. Everywhere I look, I see it. Each morning when I poke my head out of the hatch, from our boat on the floating docks in Lochinver harbour, there it is; in sunshine, green dome gleaming; other times swathed in summit-crawling mist. Often its domed top is sliced off completely by cloud but it’s even more ominous then, its threatened presence looming larger than its actual visual spectre.

I stalk it back, from the safe distance of this far end of the harbour, preparing myself for the day I will climb it. From this side it looks impossibly steep – pillar mountain, Sula Bheinn – a rock hard phallus of vertical ascent. Locals assure me that it’s the long walk in rather than the climb up that is the hard part. However, this afternoon when I looked at it through binoculars I was actually frightened.

I was slowly scanning the horizon above the village, my eyes grazing, leisurely following the patches of light which were moving sensuously over the tilted scree slopes of Canisp, and then onto the lumpy moors with their little woodlands and clearings of soft grass, all greenly idyllic. And then suddenly Suilven – filling the view, filling the world.

I have to admit, my belly shuddered a little, my heart quickened and quailed. Suilven so close. And I am to scale it…

Lochinver harbour, Assynt, Scotland
17th May 2014