I checked the tides given on the chart for every hour before and after high water Stornoway, pencilling in the direction and speed for the twenty-four hours commencing 05.00. I also made a note of the magnetic variation — 13° West — and my compass deviation which I found to be a further 4° West with all my gear stowed. Taking these factors into account the compass course I should have to steer after clearing the Monachs was 282°.
Having satisfied myself that all the navigational information I required was entered on the charts, and having checked through again for accuracy, I folded it and slipped it into its spray-proof case. Together with the radio, I stowed it in the dinghy within reach of the helm. Then I struck the tent and when that was loaded and the camp entirely cleared, I waded into the water, pushed off and clambered in. I moored out in the channel, a stone tied to the painter, and went to sleep under the stars, clad in my oilskins, lying crossways, my feet stuck out over the side and my head cushioned on the far curve of the tight-blown fabric.
It was cold that night and I slept fitfully, conscious of the yawing of the dinghy, the ripple of the tide tugging at the mooring. I had no alarm clock, but it wasn’t necessary. Seabirds woke me as the first glimmering of dawn showed grey in the east, silhouetting the dark outline, of Eaval. I dipped my face in salt water, conscious now of a feeling of tension; eyes and head were sluggish with the night and the cold had cramped my bones. I drank the tea I had left hot in the Thermos, ate some digestive biscuits and cheese, and then I pulled up the mooring, untying the stone and letting it fall back into the water. The outboard engine started at the second pull and I was on my way, circling in the tide run and heading down the centre of the pale ribbon of water that ran between the sands towards the open sea.
The light in the east was pale and cold as steel; the stars overhead still bright. The speed of my passage made a little wind, and that too was cold, so that I shivered under my oilskins. All ahead was black darkness. I had a moment of panic that I should lose the channel and get stranded among the breakers on the bar. Passing through the narrows between Eachkamish and the northern tip of Benbecula — the channel marked on the chart as Beul an Toim — the broken water of the bar showed in a ghostly semicircle beyond the piled-up bulk of my stores. Even when I could see the breaking waves, I could not hear them. All I heard was the powerful roar of the outboard. I steered a compass course, running the engine slow, and as the dunes slid away behind me, my craft came suddenly alive to the movement of the waves.
Breaking water right ahead and no gap visible. The light was growing steadily and I jilled around for a moment, searching the line of breakers. A darker patch, further south than I had expected … I felt my way towards it, conscious of the tug of the tide under the boat, noting the sideways drift. And then suddenly my eyes, grown accustomed to the light, picked out the channel, a narrow highway of dark water, growing wider as I entered it. The swell was bad here out on the bar, the waves steep but only occasionally breaking. The dinghy pitched wildly, the engine racing as the prop was lifted clear of the water.
There was a moment when I thought I’d missed the channel, the waves higher than my head and starting to curl at the top. I wanted to turn back then, but I didn’t dare for fear the dinghy would overturn. The jerricans were shifting despite their lashings and I had to grip hold of the wooden slats at my feet to prevent myself from being thrown out. This lasted for perhaps a minute. Then suddenly the waves were less steep. A moment later, and I was motoring in calm water and the sea’s only movement was a long, flat, oily swell. I was over the bar, and looking back I could scarcely believe that I had found a way through from landward, for all behind me was an unbroken line of white water, the confusion of the waves showing as toppling masses against the dawn sky, the low land surrounding the Ford already lost in the haze of spray that hung above the bar. I set my course by the compass, took a small nip from the flask I had kept handy and settled down to the long business of steering and keeping the engine going.
Shortly before seven the sun rose. It was broad daylight then and the Monachs clearly visible on the port bow. At 06.45 I had tuned in to the BBC on 1500 metres. There was no change in the weather pattern and the forecast for sea area Hebrides was wind force 1 to 2 variable, good visibility, but fog locally. Shortly after nine the Monachs were abeam to port about two miles. They were flat as a table and at that distance the grass of the machair looked like a lawn. My compass was one of those which could be taken out of its holder and used as a hand-bearing compass. I took a bearing on the disused lighthouse, and another on Haskeir Island away to the north. These, together with a stern-bearing on the top of Clettraval on North Uist, gave me a three-point fix. I marked my position on the chart and checked it against my dead reckoning, which was based on course and speed, making due allowance for tide. The difference was 1.4 miles at 275°.
That fix was very important to me, for thereafter I was able to base my dead reckoning on a speed of 3.8 knots.
The sun was warm now, shimmering on the water, a blinding glare that made me drowsy. The one thing I hadn’t thought of was dark glasses. I had taken my oilskin jacket off some miles back. Now I removed the first of my sweaters and refilled the tank with the engine running slow. In doing so I nearly missed the only ship I was to sight that day — a trawler, hull-down on the horizon, trailing a smudge of smoke.
Every hour I wrote up my log and entered my DR position on the chart, just as I had always done back in the old days on the bridge of a freighter. The engine was my main concern, and I was sensitive to every change of note, real or imagined. All around me, the sea was alive, the movement of the swell, the flight of birds; and whenever I felt the need, there was always the radio with the Light Programme churning out endless music.
Just after eleven I ran into a school of porpoise. I thought at first it was a tidal swirl, mistaking their curving backs for the shadow cast by the lip of a small wave breaking. And then I saw one not fifty yards away, a dark body glinting in the sun and curved like the top of a wheel revolving. The pack must have numbered more than a dozen. They came out of the water three times, almost in unison and gaining momentum with each re-entry. At the final voracious plunge, the whole surface of the sea ahead of me seethed; from flat calm it was suddenly a boiling cauldron as millions of small fry skittered in panic across the surface. For an instant I seemed to be headed for a sheet of molten silver, and then the sea was oily smooth again, so that I stared, wondering whether I had imagined it.
A flash of white from the sky, the sudden splash of a projectile hitting the water … this new phenomenon thrilled me as something dimly remembered but not seen in a long while. The gannets had arrived.
There were a dozen or more of them, wheeling low and then hurling themselves into the sea with closed wings and out-thrust head, a spear-beaked missile diving headlong for the herring on which the porpoise were feeding and which in turn were attacking the small fry. I could remember my grandfather’s words before I had ever seen a gannet dive: ‘Aye,’ he’d said, his thick, guttural voice burring at us, ‘ye’ll no’ see a finer sight of heaven, for there’s nae muckle fowl (he pronounced it the Norwegian way — Fugl) can dive like a solan goose.’