I watched my chance in the seas, and she came round beautifully. I was delighted with this manoeuvre, and though there was a mighty difference between running before the sea and plunging into it head on, I found the difference very exhilarating. The spray came flying over her bows, but actually we shipped very little. She really had a gallant way of going into it, and when she heaved and plunged and did a complicated rolling-sliding movement as well, you never doubted the central stability, just as you never doubt it in an acrobat, even when the heart is in the mouth. And an extra good effort did call for applause! ‘A pretty good boat, this of ours!’ I shouted to the Crew. She smiled, clearly at the stage of nearly believing it, but still with a certain pale reserved judgment. I was surprised to find that my own lips were a bit dry and sticky; but then added to the excitement of the boat’s motion was, I suppose, a deep-seated anxiety as to reaching our anchorage, while if anything went wrong with the mass of mechanism, minus its splitpins, we should certainly now be in a nice plight. Yet somehow this state of exhilaration produces an unconquerable optimism, and all one’s muscles are alive to the last cell. I had heard of staid phlegmatic fishermen, in an all-in fight with the sea, develop an incredible activity and instancy, become truly inspired. In the end, the skipper does not speak: he moves a hand.

We came abreast of the trees, still looking as if they were on the mainland, and kept going, always with enough room about us in which to manœuvre, for I had to bear in mind the possibility of having to set our small sail and run before everything for Sleat Sound. At last I stood in for the place with the trees, keeping about half a cable length off some rocks at the south corner, where the chart (assuming this was Luing Vore—or as the chart spells it Luinga Mhor—for the variety of Gaelic spellings in the Sailing Directions and Admiralty charts must be enough to make a real Gaelic scholar forever despair) shows seven and eight fathoms, and then made over for the opposite shore, where the sailing depth ran inland from what was presumably Arisaig Point. After going for a mile or so, the place with the trees did begin to look like an island and I felt convinced that we were right. It must have been about half tide or more, for much of the shoal ground was covered. And so began the hunt for the guiding poles—those with a cross for our port side and with a circle for starboard, after first of all picking up a plain perch.

But we never picked up that plain perch—and we were now on the inland waterway, with rocks and shoals and land everywhere. We could not keep going full speed ahead, and I did reduce our way a little by retarding the spark, but I feared as yet to touch the throttle. When we saw a house ahead of us and a hill behind it, we searched despairingly for a pole or even any decent sign of a continuous passage, but could find none. We must stop. Which meant trying to get her into neutral until we should have time to see properly where we were. Which might mean—resort to the brush handle, or worse, in a narrow tidal way. I did actually dive to the engine, put my hand out to the throttle and then draw back, deciding on a further hundred yards and one last look around. It was a successful look, for I picked up a perch with a cross on our port bow. It was a pleasant moment, and a complete triumph over the Crew, who prides herself on a true far-sightedness. ‘They’re no use,’ she said, putting the glasses away.