Never in my wildest dreams had I imagined so perfect a day, so full of wonder. It was as if we were floating on a coloured bubble. There was that air of the intangible, the incredible. And at odd moments it did bring a feather of something to the throat.

We played games at trying to name the colours of our enchanted world, but it was a difficult game that tended to pass into long silences. Every now and again I rose to see that nothing was in our way, then subsided.

Shortly after two o’clock we were abreast of Dunvegan Head; then laying our course on Meall a Veg Head, I decided the time had come when we must make up our minds where we were going.

We settled on Loch Bracadale, in the west of Skye, and for anchorage on Portnalong at the entrance to Loch Harport. The name Portnalong was quite new to me, and our decision here, as in all other cases, was reached after a study of the chart and the Sailing Directions. Never had either of us any personal knowledge to go upon. A rough calculation showed that we could not hope to arrive much before six o’clock. I increased the oil drip-feed of the engine for luck. Neither of us worried about a set meal. The Crew spread out biscuits, cream cheese, and a cupful of milk in the cockpit. I ate with relish and she with deliberation, while the rocks moved slowly past and the sound of the engine was almost forgotten.

The sun beat down upon us and upon the sea yet not glaringly but, as it were, modified by the distant sombre haze. There was induced, too, an insidious lightness of the head, not unpleasant, a sort of etherialised intoxication due in some measure, I suspect, to eddying whiffs from the engine! The roar of the engine in that world of ineffable quietude became itself a comment of the purest fantasy—for which there could be no acknowledgment but a smile.

As we passed the ‘Merchant’, a basaltic column near the head, Neist Point lighthouse stood out before us and the Crew became interested in the magnificent rock formations that rose up one behind another in varying degrees of shadow and light. She got her camera ready and we debated the question of exposure, for with a calm sea under a clear sky we recognised that there must be a tremendous amount of light about, far more than there could ever be on any landscape. The camera does make one look at things, though whether one gets it to reproduce what one sees is entirely another matter! And those white fingers of light that man has set up to guide him round the danger spots on his charted seas can have a remarkable fascination, for there is something more than a facile symbolism here. Enterprise, endurance, a continuous vigilance. If there is anything amongst the works of man that may conceivably give him a feeling of pride, even of nobility, it is surely a lighthouse. There was no movement about Neist Point lighthouse, yet we felt human eyes watching us. The white paint and strong clean lines, set upon the dark rock, had a fine austerity. The Crew had an impulse to salute with her horn that watchtower as we passed, but she did not dare.