The visibility was very poor as we stood out between the beacons, but we hoped that the fog might lift around midday. I had made up my mind to land on Rum and climb one of its hills and inspect its terrain for myself; and, more particularly, see what steps might be taken to prevent me. In fact had the weather permitted, the Crew and I had intended to anchor in Scresort Bay for a day or two and then explore fully.

But we were destined never to land on Rum. The weather proved too much for us. As we went along shore, the rock faces of Eigg to within a short distance of the water were shrouded in cloud and mist, and we could not see much more than two hundred yards ahead. The skerries were crowded with birds and one mysteriously moving rock point turned out to be a seal. Ru-Stoir was really impressive in that magnifying gloom, and the sea was surly, though there was not, as yet, much wind.

We set a compass course for Rum into stuff thick as a wall, and only when Eigg was disappearing behind, and the sea, opening between the islands, threatened to be nasty, did I fully realise the folly of our expedition; for even if we found our anchorage, what could be seen by landing on such a day, and in the event of our being storm-bound, how deal with five grown persons on one small boat? We held council, and as it was now after midday with the fog showing no signs of lifting, it was decided to return. Yet it was with a deep reluctance that I pushed the tiller over in that lumpy sea and once more fetched Eigg out of the mists. It was our first taste, however, of attempting a new anchorage through fog, and though we were baffled it was not because we could not have made the passage. Sailing into fog is an eerie experience, and must, with the siren going, become wearing to the nerves of any navigating officer. Fog on a dirty sea in cold wet weather can become unpleasant to anyone. It was cold enough with us.

We got safely back inside Castle Island and, with five willing pairs of hands, made fast to our two anchors fairly creditably. Our disappointment eased as the weather worsened.

The night before leaving, a working engineer happened to be about and he had a look around my engine. Of the four bolts that held it to the boat, two were so loose that they could almost be picked out. They went round and round and could not be tightened.

‘I shouldn’t worry about that too much,’ he said, ‘—until you get two bigger ones.’

He then took off the two inspection plates to the oil chamber. ‘Once’, he explained, ‘we were at sea with a one-cylinder Kelvin. There was no splitpin beneath the locking nuts to the big end, and didn’t the nuts work loose and come off. There was one dunt! and that was the end of that engine. She was smashed beyond any repair. I have never forgotten it.’