The last day of my latest visit to Skye turned out very unexpected indeed. I’d been given the day off from my normal duties, meaning I had my first work-free weekday holiday since 2009.
Accordingly, I woke late with an unaccountably sore head and dry mouth. In short, I was not feeling at my best. Looking over the bay, I saw a yacht in an unusual position near the rocks. Had she run aground?
I’d seen her arriving the previous evening. I took some pictures with a long lens and noted a few people had gathered at the pier. Yup, looked like she’d run aground. So, cursing myself for such diligence and knowing it only ever led to trouble, I phoned the local paper merely to tip them off, and they said they’d be interested in a pic.
So I hied myself down to the scene and ended up hanging out with locals, who seemed split into two groups. The actual locals – Gaels – were a right couthy lot in thick jerseys. Very droll. All five smoked roll-up cigarettes, which I found extraordinary.
Then there were the toffs from a nearby art gallery. You know, the men with coloured trousers, the women in green wellies. Toffs fascinate me to the same extent as their close cousins, neds, as they both affect uniforms and effectively inhabit a micro-society beyond the mainstream.
Still, everyone was pleasant enough. There was a third group, holidaymakers like myself, mainly English and very nice, which was hardly surprising for folk admiring a way of life based on nature and quietness.
The yacht was marooned on sand – luckily enough – and there was nothing the lifeboat could do, so the plan was just to wait till the tide came in again and float her off. It seemed the owner had declined the offer of a mooring the previous evening, just dropping anchor instead. But the anchor had dragged, as the nautical people said.
As I waited with the pullovered locals, we talked of this and that, occasionally having a right laugh about one thing and another, prompting one fellow with a pick-up to aver of your hero: “He’s going to write, ‘Locals stood around laughing while the poor sailors languished.’”
In truth, the locals had been out in dinghies to try and help. One loaned me a pair of wellies (“Just leave them in the hotel bar when you’re done”), and I waded out to meet the sailors when eventually they came ashore.
Fair to see they weren’t best pleased to see “the press”. Chap was a bit unpleasant. It all reminded me of my formative years on an island paper, not least the locals also being unwilling to be quoted.
Back in the house, the Good Lord sent the usual assistance: email went down; internet went down; word processing programme, unhappy with a recent Apple upgrade, repeatedly froze. I’d to phone the Coastguard and check a million wee details.
But eventually I filed a story and photies. And that was the last day of my holiday. So much for the day off. Next time something like this happens, I told myself, just keep your ruddy mouth shut and pretend you didn’t see anything. I’ve told myself this before. Chance would be a fine thing.
