I sit on the aft deck listening to the snap of the ensign in a corrugated wind. Today we engaged with the Atlantic close up, feeling every wave, the lift and push, cross tides beneath and around us as we rounded the lighthouse at Ardnamurchan, always an adventure and a half. Then on to the Isle of Muck, the seas sideways and upside down and very teenage. It wasn’t rough. I know rough. I know massive waves breaking over the bow and this wasn’t like that but I have sea legs and my old legs remembered themselves even though it is years since I bowed through anything remotely rough. Other guests do not have my experience and I noticed how they quietened and hunkered as I rolled with each twist and screwball feeling immense thrill and excitement. I remember this. This is my whole life with seafarers.

We moored and walked for a couple of hours over many stories and a million years, through wildflowers and wild birds and the few people who inhabit this remote island. Then back to the boat for another dance with the Atlantic roil until finally the best of skippers brings us safely into our resting place below Rum for the night. What has uplifted me today is the way I feel. I was so very tired when I boarded. And yet today, the first day, I feel alive and wild again, feral and free and so happy. Is this my happy place? Not just the island magic I already know so well, the wide and truthful sky, the endless weather changes, the wildlife and the island people but the direct contact with the ocean. I thought I was afraid of rough, any rough. I remember saying I would not go on a boat again unless the sea was dead flat, dead, flat, humourless, a whisper of herself, submissive, polite, like so many women I know, as I was once. Today she showed me wild, almost in a tantrum, her truth and I felt as one with her.

I am always learning.