Through the Sound of Scalpay, down the Stream of the Blue Men and across the Minch, past the Galtachans and on to Na h-Eileanan Mora.

The view across Luskintyre bay. En route to Leverburgh wharf

Not the Bay we wanted but it looked the part.

Terry had already cocked up and our ten compatriots knew it. Gaelic or no Gaelic, we were late and had gone to the wrong port. Not the wrong jetty, the wrong port. 20 miles further down the coast. Captain Sean [we later became friends] didn’t show his frustration [really] but out we went under the new bridge at a throaty 20 knots.

Daisy gets the box seat when the ship’s pilot realises she was not at fault for our tardiness. The Ship’s Pet.

Puffins came and went, scuttling across the water escaping our bow wave as we approached the first rock outcrops – the Galatachans. Guano encrusted and alive with Auks – each making its own noise.

“I am the Guillemot

I use my bill a lot

I get the fish out of the wet

I eat my fill a lot

I live on ledges

Vertical Edges”

“Eating-wise I do not know what veg is

Don’t give me sherbet

Give me a turbot

My appetite for fish I cannot curb it…”

Close up we appreciated the difference between the Guillemot and its neighbour the Razorbill as our boat bobbed silently beneath the 400 foot basalt cliffs. Auks they are, as is the Puffin. Comical and ludicrous they seemed as they came and went – ineptly tumbling in the water before becoming airborne with whirring wingbeats.

“We chuntered on around the island, gawping skyward scanning for the Sea Eagle but to no avail…

Our compatriots became chilled as we moved on at the speed of sail,

The sea rose and dipped as we clicked and clicked,

iPhone and Nikon side by side,

Camera buffs, grumps and bird nerds had every species licked.

As we rounded the isle and looked for Sanderling

Skipper announced that 4 by 4 we were going to make a landing…”

“Ashore we dispersed and breathed in the solitude

Walking clumsily across the rocky spit,

Tip Toeing past the angered Bonxies,

Almost apologising for wearing such bright kit”

An island without people – where we had been pitched ashore like early whalers or prospectors tasked with quickly assessing its possibilities. Water there must be – this is the Outer Hebrides, where dust hardly exists and underfoot you are never far from a peaty squelch. With 19 hours of June sunlight birds and plants were clearly getting on with it.

The only sign of human presence, the small bothy built years ago, now occupied by RSPB volunteers. An eerie setting that exercised the mind to the rigours of a life of solitude in some of the world’s remotest places. We dubbed it the ‘The Shackleton Hut”.

A rare shot of the band – taking lunch at ‘The Shackleton ‘

The small bays beyond the spit harboured pairs of Eider duck, and above, incessant Auk traffic whizzed by, only interrupted by the occasional Peregrine sortie or Bonxie dive bomb.

“And time yet for a hundred indecisions ,

And for a hundred visions and revisions,

Before taking of toast and tea”

Terry fought on explaining to a ‘New Friend’ that a hooded crow was quite normal in these parts. It wasn’t an eagle despite the pin sharp shot we were shown on his Nikon.

Back on board, the crew steered us through the wild straits and back out into the Minch. Fast flowing and dangerous these waters are – testimony is paid to lost vessels and countless lives.

Much of the shipping history of these parts may have gone unnoticed to the outside world, but perhaps the best-known story was when distant Eriskay became the unsuspecting focus of the war time “tragedy” which saw 250,000 bottles of whisky run aground after a cargo ship was stranded in a storm – hereafter immortalised as ‘Whisky Galore’.

The Lighthouse with massive foghorn on the Isle of Scalpay.

Journey’s end for us as we rounded the sound and cruised back into the Tarbert bay. Ahead, the characteristic roofs of the Harris Distillery, and the reassurance that Terry was no longer ‘persona non grata’. Tea was inevitably taken in the visitor centre in the Distillery, and a bottle of gin for later.