We gave the beacon on Eilean Lathanach a fairly wide berth, and, being warned that the east side of the loch is very foul, crossed towards the west but not too close. We now discerned the two islands, Goat Island and White Island, towards the head of the loch and knew we could stand in behind the latter for an anchorage in two and a half fathoms. But when we had opened out this anchorage we also opened out a short arm of the sea, called Loch Caol, running westward, and saw a motor boat of about our own size or somewhat larger well within what seemed ideal shelter. Our Directions did mention Loch Caol, but with the instruction to anchor in the mouth of it. We were going one better than that! So I slowed down all I could, while the Mate steered ahead, intending to drop anchor well short of the other boat. But within a minute the Crew was crying, ‘Look at the weeds!’

It was an extraordinary display of the weed chorda filum. I could feel the cords gathering round the shaft, choking the blades, and slowing us up, so I promptly stopped the engine. Though we were in about two fathoms, the upper parts of the weed streamed along the surface, combed by the tide. We estimated the length of some of them at thirty feet, yet two or three dozen of them, hauled from the bottom, could be found adhering to a single pebble not much bigger than a pigeon’s egg. They were about the thickness of boot laces, brown, tapering finely at each end, and tough. Many a time in the days and anchorages to follow did a minnow give a tug for the fisherman to observe laconically, ‘Chorda filum.’

We could not see the propellors in their brown nest, so getting into the dinghy the Mate towed us back a little way, and we dropped anchor. The boat hook cleared the shaft in a short time, and, in any case, we decided the weed was slimy enough to act as grease! Moreover, we had had a great sea day and—we had arrived.

XII

The Ross of Mull

The hour or two after arrival provide a relaxation that is extremely pleasant. I had thought, before we started out, of long quiet evenings, when a man might get the size and balance of things. And evenings like these were given. I can still hear the thin piping note of a young oyster-catcher, haunting the still night with its plaint, like a new-born infant a darkened tenement, a spiring wail out of the gulf, a beginning in pain and fear carrying already the overtone of the end. On nights like these, things come whole into a silence that the brimming and choking and recession of the sea deepen unfathomably.