Catalogues were searched for lamps, lifebelts, and other gear, while I spent an afternoon in John Macpherson’s Sporting Stores, trying out more personal material, from oilskins to beds and sea-fishing tackle. A detailed list of utensils required for the simple business of dishing up a meal rather staggered me, so I refused to have anything to do with it, beyond giving the cross measurement of the gimbals as inches. I had thought an irreducible minimum meant two or three articles that could be sort of wrapped round and carried under the arm. ‘Strike out what we don’t weed.’ but I was not being caught as easy as that. ‘Strike it out yourself,’ I replied. And if, after that, I became a bit reckless, I must at least mention one particular purchase, for its comfort had the perfection that knows no reservation. I refer to those shaped inflatable beds, made of some sort of rubbered twill, that weigh only a pound or two and can be stowed in an attaché case. Luxuriousness is not their sole virtue, for water, salt or fresh, refuses to penetrate their thin hygienic skins and the price of those we had (Li-lo) was seventeen and sixpence each. They never let us down—or not so far but that a pumpful or two of air restored the desired floating effect. I cannot conceive of anything better, laid on the laced canvas of a yacht’s folding cot. But then perhaps I am talking of pleasure cruising in confined spaces, not whaling in the Arctic. In any case, I must have presented an unusual spectacle to the young lip-sticked customer who came upon me, sans jacket and boots, extended inside a blue sleeping bag on a red Li-lo upon the top floor of Mr. Macpherson’s shop. For I was penitently trying to amend my practice of buying first and trying afterwards.

Finally there were the compass and aneroid. There is a very good little article on the weather glass in Brown’s Nautical Almanac. I paid more than I had intended for the compass with its four-inch card in a simple teak box. But it is a beauty. A very good one, however, can be got for about forty shillings. And if mine cost nearly double that, I did at least make an effort to get one second hand. In comparison, the aneroid was very cheap (if it had cost so much per tap, it would have ruined us).

Meantime no news was coming from Skye, but I felt sure that the engine would now be running like a sewing machine and the hull glistening in new paint. I had reckoned without the timeless West! On a chance visit, several weeks after I had bought her, Eoin discovered her to be still untouched, the old paint flaking in the sun, the seams opening like daisies, the engine scattered on the grass. There were high words, I understand, and counter orders, and Eoin arrived back fuming, far more annoyed than if the boat had been his own, for he felt his folk had let him down before the stranger!