IAN STEPHEN’S BRITTANY WEBLOG

Turbulence and patches of calm...

5 September 2008

It’s Friday. This is Port Ellen. There are some fine marina berths just upharbour from the ferry. We arrived last night at the back of eight. A shade under an hour ahead of my estimate. It’s not that the pressure was on the navigator you understand, just that it’s a fine game of chess. With tides at their strongest, you don’t want to fight them at the major headlands. They have personalities. But you’re going to have to take them head-on sometime on a long trip.

Kebock Head glooms above the Sound of Shiants. Waterstone Point and Neist Point throw the basalt of Skye and substantial downdrafts of destructive air to the Little Minch. Caliach Point, Northwest Mull, is one of the many awesome Gaelic old women who demand respect. Suffer the consequences if you don’t. These chidings often consist of turbulent water – a washing machine of broth with a head not as smooth as that on the pint of Guiness we’re going to have if we make our Irish landfall.

These are the ones to be wary of. But then there are the icons which are our milestones. There’s Heisker light, out on its own before our run down to Coll. There’s Dubh Artach, the grey masterpiece of the Stevensons, with its red red band. I was aboard a lobsterboat once, trying not to hinder the work as I listened to the rhythms of the guys, to make poems as a crew. Steven’s Dad was a keeper on that one. I met Steven again this summer, crewing on the Sound of Harris ferry. He clocked me – and aye, there was more security with Calmac than there was at the lobsters.

But there are two vessels, traveling together. I got worried at night, not seeing the light or loom of the other for too many hours. There is the same navigation software on each boat. The same waypoints, the same theoretical electronic red line. But on my watch I allowed the boat to zig-zag the line to get good speed under sail.

We met again soon enough. The tides are pretty much predictable. Their direction and strength will be close to what’s in the books and charts if we’ve done our sums right. Wind is more fickle and we’re not getting the push we’d hoped for so we’re a shade behind schedule.

I work aboard Bonny, from High Water Ullapool, Jean skippers Délphinea and calculates from the Dover figures. Jean sails with his wife, Edith. He’s had his heart attack and has some living to do. Michel is the owner-skipper of Bonny. He distributed newspapers and ran a restaurant and got only the 1st of May off work for many years. He’s a cool skipper.

His companion, Guy, a French-Canadian photographer, loves to experience wilderness and often travels by sea-kayak. He found out about the adventure on the internet. There was to have been 3 boats carrying twelve people. But these 4 took their 2 vessels to Stornoway, Faroes, Westmann Islands and Iceland. There have been engine as well as electronic failures. Always at times when you wanted them badly. There has been a lot of waiting for weather. And there have been meetings.

And the stray cat they picked up in Stornoway. A poet by trade who wants to write prose about boats and sea. And the people on these things.

I’ve been welcomed into this community. I like to put dividers on paper charts and note the times of changes of current. Jean and I, on different boats, agreed we would lose the favour of the tide at the Rhinns of Islay. He and Edith went fishing. We put up a poled-out headsail, with the wind behind us and accepted that we would sprint to the headlands and crawl round them. But in light wind, it would not be dangerous.

That’s pretty much what happened. A little local turbulence, hypnotic patches of calm and whirls on the flattish swell. A lump or two across it all. I picked a transit – shoremarks in line – the aerial on the white gable. It took forever for the aerial to walk to the lighthouse and the outbuildings and the point thereafter. But it did. And our speed came back. The skipper was smiling again. And we had one beer each, ashore in port Ellen, before devouring Guy’s stew of chilly.

Délphinea arrived in the early hours. We’ve studied wind and tide together. We’re in a good vantage point to plan rounding Mull of Kintyre and taking on the North Channel. It looks like there will be 30 knots of breeze tonight and rain with it. I’m for waiting. There’s also a book festival in this village. I’m reading Ali Smith and she’s appearing. It looks like fair tide and wind before that scheduled time but things can change.

But, for the anglers amongst you – Délphinea scored with these small mackerel caught at a trolling speed of 2 knots. Guy sauted them in their own oil and served with a simple rice dish. Michel went up the road for a single bottle of white French wine. Waiting could be worse. These tiny mackerel taste sweet and true but we have to wonder why we’re catching them these days. We never used to see them on the West coast of Scotland.

© Ian Stephen, 2008

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