One of the those days in the Minch

July 18, 2008 on 12:22 pm | In Powerboating and Jet boating, Uncategorized | No Comments

I guess we all have those days when you leave the house thinking you are going to do one thing and come back thinking ‘did that really just happen?’

On Wednesday morning I left the house with a small packed lunch and headed over the top of the island towards Uig. The week had been a bit confused with the weather forcing me to cancel a day of sea kayaking with clients, it was too windy. So I was driving over to go out and learn the ropes on Murray’s new boat Lochlann. I am skippering her at the beginning of August for a few days.

Alongside this I had a job as safety adviser to a TV company (www.mojatv.co.uk) to cover the crew filming Naill Iain Macdonald on his attempt to row across the Minch. I was not responsible for the safety of the crossing just the film crew.

At Miavaig, I was drinking tea and catching up with Murray, who owns SeaTrek, before he was due to go off to drive his RIB with the film crew to capture the start of Niall Iain’s trip. It was one of those; the weather, which forced me to cancel, had forced them to cancel. So chaos rained. I had had several long conversations late in the previous evenings with Kenny from MojaTV about what was going to happen.

Then we heard from the TV crew the attempt was going ahead but there was no safety boat to shadow Niall Iain. This put Murray and I in a difficult position as Murray would be returning with the film crew and in the worse case, the crossing went wrong, the question would be asked of Murray and I why Niall Iain was left alone? So I called the TV company and let them know I would not let Murray follow the trip as I felt it was unsafe not to have safety cover.

This threw a spanner in the works and a flurry of phone calls followed. The eventual up shot was the boat with the TV crew would return to Stornoway, drop off the crew, then go back out to provide the safety cover for the rest of the crossing. The problem now was Murray needed a guarantee to be back for 5pm on Thursday. So I drew the job of driving the boat, a quick call home and then an urgent call for crew. Anna’s brother John Alec was home and he has boat driving experience so the press gang were sent round to collect him.

By 1300 we were sitting outside the harbour with a TV crew and the boat going up and down like the proverbial bucking bronco.

After running the crew back to dry land, John Alec and I settled down to crossing the Minch at 3 knots (3 nautical miles per hour) 42 miles (we did wonder if this was a record for the slowest powered crossing).

The first few hours were fine as we pootled round the boat getting settled in and everything sorted. There is only so much interest you can get from watching seabirds and someone rowing, eventually resulting in creeping boredom.

We tried to find a drum to create a beat for Niall Iain to row faster. We ran through all the songs to do with rowing and began to come up with scenarios to end it faster. They were funny at the time; ‘Micheal Row Your Boat Ashore’ and John Alec suggestion of the Gaelic song ‘S truagh nach do dh’fhuirich mi tioram air tir’ which translates to ‘Shame I didn’t stay on dry land’.

As the sun set we watched Niall Iain become weary and the pain start to set in. His rowing slowed and the rests grew in length. He was being pushed in the right direction by the wind but his speed decreased.

John Alec and I sat, drank tea and ate crisps. We had made a decision, as Niall Iain wanted to do a solo trip, to not speak to him unless it concerned safety. It is hard to watch someone sit with their head in their hands in obvious distress.

The night drew on and eventually we arrived at the Summer Isles. The wind had dropped and the drizzle had set in. It was unpleasant.

Niall Iain struggled with tiredness. I think he was unable to decide his route through the islands and so time for a ‘ powernap’. While he was sleeping John Alec and I were sitting, hoods up, nursing a cup of tea when within 15 feet of Niall Iain’s boat a Minke Whale (BalaenopteramAcutorostrata) blew and there was a small pod of harbour porpoises (phocoena phocoena) feeding near by.

The sun brightened the air but mist held it heavy about us.

As the rowing continued we entered the mouth of Loch Broom and slowly from behind us the weather started to clear with the scenery of the Loch gradually being revealed from under a blanket.

As we passed the islands guarding the mouth proper, we were treated to a pod of short beaked common dolphins (Delphinus delphis) feeding round us and as we put some speed on to move away they began to bow ride. With the boat moving, it creates a pressure wave at the front and the dolphins surf this, jumping out of the water and swooping in from the side of the boat. It is spectacular display and never fails to raise my pulse rate.

Finally we arrived at the pier in Ullapool and an exhausted Niall Iain was whisked away in a media scrum.

We, meantime, nipped to the cafe, ate a hearty breakfast, at two in the afternoon, checked the boat over and set off. If only it was as simple as just to return to Stornoway.

The boat had to be in Leverburgh for a trip Friday morning.

Tough? No, the Minch was like a sheet of glass and we ran south at 28 to 29 knots across to the Shaints and then to Ranish Point, treated to another Minke we turned into the Sound of Harris before mooring the boat up in Leverburgh. John Alec who lives in London commented as we hurled through the picture postcard ‘it is going to be impossible to explain this when I get back to work’

Picking up Ruari’s car at the pier, retrieving my car from Stornoway, delivering Ruari’s car to Murray, dropping off John Alec, I arrived home 24 hours later than I had expected wondering if it had all been for real. I am still wondering as in the rush I forgot to take my camera …

Tim Pickering
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