Gunn’s flair and subtlety in expressing his feelings are not confined to subjective descriptions of mountains and island landscapes. They are also put into play in response to the element that perhaps fascinated him most of all—the sea. Here there is a mixture of allusions to what is concrete and defined in terms of charts and sailing directions and the sense of utter captivation created by the capricious nature of the sea. He captures the spirit of Joseph Conrad when he writes: ‘The wind became intermittent and the colours in the sea varied and fascinating. Towards the west, where the blue sky was widening, the water was living amaranth; east and south it was a leaden rolling waste. The cloud formations were of great complexity, from pure white puffs in the distant blue, airy as meadowland dreams, through snarls and wind-drawn angers overhead, to the sombre pall that lay on Skye and the inky gloom that blotted out the south west.’

Descriptions of the present are often inter-woven with musings on the past. Reference is made to the spot off Earraid where Robert Louis Stevenson has his Alan Breck and David Balfour shipwrecked. Allusion is also made to Boswell and the worthy Dr Johnson, not the best or appreciative of travellers. But it is the continuity of life, traditions and customs on the islands that clearly mean most to Gunn. His receptiveness to feelings is powerfully evoked by the sight of people on a landscape and this confirms within his mind the close relationship that exists between reality and legend. ‘. . . . my mind goes back to Benbecula, to a picture of great waves on its Western strand, a herd girl sheltering against a stook of corn, wild geese in a stubble field, in a grey day of small rain. What virtue there is in that picture I cannot tell, but it has already much of the force of legend. . . .’

Juxtaposed with sentiment and feeling and running through the book is a distinct vein of humour. There has to be as the crew cannot be described as being professional. They, like so many, derive unconcealed pleasure from messing around in boats. Their lack of experience removes none of the excitement from this strange voyage, which the author describes so succinctly and humorously in his dedication to his wife. ‘This simple record of a holiday in a boat, bought in ignorance and navigated by faith and a defective engine, knowing she will be happy if it inspires others to find themselves further at sea’.

Dairmid Gunn
1988

Table of Contents

Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Foreword
I - How not to Buy a Boat
II - Fitting Out
III - Cutting the Painter
IV - Out to Sea
V - And it did Blow
VI - How we Arrived at Eigg
VII - Egga, Ego, Ardegga, Egea, Eiggie, or Eigg
VIII - To Arisaig and the Sands of Morar
IX - Round Ardnamurchan
X - An t’Eilean Muilleach
XI - Round the Caliach
XII - The Ross of Mull
XIII - Hii, Hy, I, Ia, Io, Y, Yi . . . or Iona
XIV - The Torranan Rocks
XV - Oban
XVI - Glen Etive, where she ‘builded her bridal hold’
XVII - Landlord Rampant
XVIII - Farewell to Deirdre’s garden
XIX - ‘I dislike being long at a time’
XX - Homeward Bound
XXI - Liberty and Property
XXII - The Last Trump