Fairly good sleep. The faint restlessness of a new situation sleeping with strangers. No movement. No creaking like on Leader 2 years ago.
A fantastic breakfast: fruit, yoghurt, cereal, sausages, rolled cheese. People eat quietly. Many talk enthusiastically about the wildlife: seeing humpback whales and 2 minkes on previous trips aboard BE.
Underway before 9. Skies are clearing and sky is mostly blue. We make our way West across the North of Mull with Ardnamurchan Point on the mainland off our starboard bow. Passing that we can see Muck, Rum and Eigg a few miles to the North, the larger points of Rum flossed with cloud like ice cream on a cone. The sea is blue black and smooth but then ripples as we pass Mull and out into The Minch.
First thing on deck is to hose and sweep down decks. One of the crew Ned ‘The saltwater pickles the deck and stops bacteria growing. We try and do it every 1 or 2 days.’
Nikki, our skipper, tells us our watches.
‘It’s a long day to Vatersay so it’s something to keep us occupied.’
She tells us how after we pass Coll the sea gets deeper up to 23 metres and this is where it’s good to spot whales. I’m on 3 til 6.
We see dolphins breaking the surface dead ahead but half a mile distant. Suddenly they are heading along the surface towards our bow like torpedoes. As they arrive they quickly flip over underwater like Olympic swimmers starting a new length and follow the bow close together rising and falling to the surface in that way they have.
They also like to turn their grey white bellys to the surface and fix you briefly with one of their eyes and smiling mouths as if to say hello to all of us peering down at them. When they do this their undersides appear a lovely bottle green. Like the sunlit water around them.
I notice many of them have abrasions on their backs and heads, long straight scars and one has squares of criss crossed abrasions like the hand grip you might get on a tool.
I read that these are ‘mostly caused by social interactions but also by tussles with prey.’
The skipper’s 2 year old border terrier, Bracken, is beside himself trying to poke his nose between the small gap below the side of the boat running back and forth barking.
We soon settle into the slowness of life on board. There is a calmness to being at sea (obviously not always). We sit and look at the sea and the views. Feel the sun and wind on my skin. We cannot go anywhere. Since yesterday when I was rushing about trying to get everything ready, get on time. My breathing has slowed. My thoughts are less frequent. Sometimes I don’t think at all. I just look and feel.
The sea is like a gently rolling blue and blue black flatness. Lit by reflections of white clouds above Rum.
Arrive at Vatersay about 5.45 into a bay with perfect sand and turqoise sea. Looks Caribbean but feels Arctic in the water. Stay in for 10 minutes but it’s too cold to try to enjoy looking for sea life. A few 100 metres across dunes is the Atlantic. The sun is above the Western horizon. I have the yearning for travel that is intense when you’re young and has diminished but is still there.
The moon, bulbous and orange, rises from behind the hill on the promontory. Stars are coming out but I’m too tired to wait up for them. I climb into my bunk and fall fast asleep.
The Slow Walker 