I soon learned—particularly from catalogues of yacht equipment, like Simpson, Lawrence & Co.’s of Glasgow—that my boat was, beyond all argument, the merest shell. The engine was in the cabin, and I knew only too well what internal combustion engines are capable of in the way of fumes and noise. The cabin was unlined, and the more the Crew pondered the lack of locker accommodation—for there was nothing beyond the pantry-box—the more disturbed I became. Smooth water and sunny days are not altogether the rule on the West. While as for gear, the total outfit consisted of two anchors and some chain and even these were not galvanised. There was no navigation equipment; no place for cooking, no galley. And, of course, no dinghy.

Assuming the fifteen-year-old engine broke down in a stiff sea with rocks on a lee shore, what then? I knew how the tides could swirl through these western narrows at anything up to seven or eight knots, and, against the wind, what jabbling infernos they could kick up, not to mention rips over sunken reefs. Curiously enough, I was never afraid of being able to handle the vessel, if only I could contrive to keep her under way. I should always know what to do so long as I could get the bow pointing the way I wanted. To be broken down and helpless might not only be perilous in the extreme, but would brand the seaman a fool, if, with the seaman’s foresight, he had not made such arrangements as he could. One can resign oneself to an Act of God, but hardly to the dilemma of a fool.

For some weeks my investigations, after working-hours, were carried on with the greatest interest. Mostly this consisted of long lazy meditations where some visualising processes went on that every now and then had to be checked by reference to catalogues or charts. No other writing had the slightest interest, and often I found myself astonished that people should read novels or plays or daily papers (apart, conceivably, from the advertising or financial columns). The possibility of a world war was a little upsetting, but the vision of a kettle of hot water upsetting over the Crew, if there were no gimbals, faded it out easily.

I walked with the sea and boats. The Crew remembered how once, as a little girl, she had prayed for a bicycle. But the pleasantest sarcasm was unavailing, for somehow the whole idea sailed best of all in a breeze of laughter. These were happy preoccupied weeks, and out of them let me try to get some order.

And first the sea itself, for if your boat keeps going, you must take her somewhere, against wind and tide, beyond headlands, by reefs, round islands, into inlets, until you come to a safe anchorage. And here I record my first gift—two Admiralty charts covering the whole west coast of Scotland (nos. 2475 and 2515). They were presented, duly inscribed with a gallant verse of poetry, by an Orkney Sagaman who has charted the more dangerous human reefs as far a-sea as America and China. I got a third chart of the Hebrides, from Barra Head to Scarpa Island (2474), and a fourth of the north from Thurso Bay to the North Minch, including Sulisker (1954). These more than covered the whole of any possible cruise, and though the scale is small (about two and a half miles to the inch), I found the one book to help it out, namely the Clyde Cruising Club Sailing Directions for the West Coast of Scotland.