These are stories of times spent in remote places on the edge of things. They are woven in sea cliffs, hidden high places, soft quiet hollows, mysterious dark depths and fay forests. They are from the wonder found only after the road ends.
Chasing the setting sun I went up the track from Camas Tuath. Ahead of me the red wheel of the wheelbarrow I was pushing glinted amber in the dusk light. The wheelbarrow held a bag of dirty clothes to wash, my tent, sleeping bag, a notebook and a candle in a dry bag. Fitted over top was my black coracle. Lashed in place it capped the wheelbarrow like a rounded swimmers cap. I had thought of the idea to use the half sea mussel farm float as a boat a few months ago at Camas during a swimming and raft building session and was excited to test it out on a small expedition.
As I passed the Camas road end the sun set and the night began. Heralded in with the baying of sheep as they walked in front of me on the single track road, darkness settled. The flock of sheep left me at the turn off to Pottie (Poit na h-I) and by the faintest starlight I continued on to the old church yard. A small rabbit ran across my path just as I rounded the back of the church and began following a sheep trodden gap in the bracken towards the Loch. I pushed through the under brush slowly with my wheelbarrow and gear and a flashlight in my mouth until I spotted the edge of a steep drop just before the lake shore. There I left my wheelbarrow turned over to cover my rucksack and dirty clothes for the night.
I lopped my dry bag and water bottle into my midnight coracle and put the flashlight in my pocket while my eyes adjusted to the deep darkness of creeping willow and bracken. Carefully I tested the embankment. Like sipping a hot cup of tea, I patiently crept, dragging my boat behind me through the brush to the water's edge. I heard the lapping of the water before I saw it. The darkness was so deep on the surface, barely a glint or glimmer it gave me. The wind pushed the water out in lazy ripples across the loch towards the far shore and Knockvologan. Somewhere in the darkness I knew a hidden rock pile island covered in overgrowth laid waiting to meet me.
Just visible I found a line of rocks that reached out into the water until they were covered by the waves 10 feet from the shore. Skipping from rock to rock with my vessel in tow, I made my way carefully over the water. As I left the safety of the shoreline, the clouds cleared briefly. In the sliver of moonlight I saw it in the distance. Fifty meters from the shore, forty five from where my rock bridge finished, a dark mass showed itself. I took stock of the direction just as the window of moonlight disappeared and the Crannog faded back into the ancient past. I could imagine it sitting there, several millennia ago, with a wood fort of birch on it and flame torches guarding the walls reflecting their light off the waters.
Reaching the end of the rocks I placed my simple boat shoreside of the final boulder and balanced it with the dry bag leaning towards the front. Straining, I held the rock as I stepped in and balanced my weight to keep it from tipping too much to any side. Cross-legged with my drybag on my lap and my hands in the water on either side, I found the centre of the weight and balanced. Precariously afloat I took one last look at the shore and pushed off from my anchor rock.
Using my cupped palms I paddled towards where I thought the crannog had appeared in the moon light. The breeze pushed me onward and I adjusted my course to combat its pull. It was dark. I tried putting my flashlight in my mouth and scanned the surface of the waters but found nothing in the distance. I scanned back behind me and even though I had just left the shore I could not see it. The darkness was so deep. Knowing the loch was not so big was comforting, so I turned off my light and paddled with the wind, trusting my instinct.
The darkness was not heavy or oppressive as it sometimes is. Peaceful, quiet and mysterious it enveloped me as my hands splashed along the surface of the water. The rocking of my coracle, the tug of the wind, the splash of my hands and the pull of the mysterious undiscovered island was all consuming. Forgotten was the long day of cooking, activity leading and community group building. Time disappeared in the swaying rythym of the water and I was present to it. Part of my coracle, part of the wind, part of the water, I paddled on. Journeying inward, forward, outward towards connection and was content.
I'm not sure when it started. Time is a tricky thing when alone. I can safely say that at some point, while enveloped in that darkness an image appeared in my mind. An image of soft smooth hands in the deep. The image was clear and sharp. The hands were holding my boat and easing me forward toward the horizon - toward a safe landing. At the same moment, the darkness eased and I felt propelled forward faster then my paddling or the wind seemed to account for. It was then that I saw something on the horizon. Slowly, a deeper blackness on the surface of the loch showed itself. As I approached the darkness grew edges, contours, and shadows.
As the rocky edges and creeping willow suddenly brushed the coracle the clouds thinned and stars began to appear above me. With the retreating darkness went timelessness. I became aware of my sore and stiff legs. I became fearful of finding a way through the creeping elbow deep willow branches and I realized that I was tiring. As the wind pushed the bottom of my coracle against the rocks I reached into the water and pushed myself off the branches and boulders.
Paddling further along the edge of the small island, I looked for an accessible harbor. Soon enough for my waning strength a break in the overhanging branches appeared and I eased my boat through. On the left a large rock appeared. On the right a long thick willow trunk snaked just above the water. I gripped each handhold and, bracing myself, slid my coracle out of the deep water and felt rocks under me. Balancing to keep all my edges above the lapping liquid, I eased my body forward onto the willow trunk. Delicately, with a spryness I did not feel, I found a purchase with my foot and crept out of the coracle barely balancing above the water.
Conscious of the possibility of the clouds return and the disappearance of the natural light I worked quickly. I pulled the coracle further into the shallows as I creeped along the willow branch above the water. The branch ended in the meter high embankment of the island.
The Crannog was covered in shoulder high braken, brambles and other softer shrubs. Straining I placed my dry bag on the branch behind me and heaved the coracle infront of me at the brush. Pushing down the shadowy wall, I cleared a path by starlight. Fighting back the brambles I stepped onto solid ancient ground and proceeded to flatten an area for my tent.
The Crannog was small. In the starlight I found a spindly rowan and a flat bit for my tent. Surrounded by lapping waves I slept. Through the night a storm came. The wind blew sideways and the rain danced. The waves sounded like they would envelope me on all sides. It was exciting. Sheltred by the stones beneath and the rowan beside, I slept.
The morning came. The wind driven waves, higher than the height of my coracle, crashed onto the Crannog. For a time I waited, watching crane flies and listening to the voices in the wave-song. When I ventured out of my dwelling I discovered that the Crannog was shrouded in mist so thick I could see nothing but white and feel nothing but wave spray driven by the wind. Later, when the time was right and the waves were only half the height of my boat, I packed up my gear. As the clouds passed I found a good bit of shallow rocks on the west side of the Crannog. From there, I eased into the coracle, balanced to keep the water out and, with a quick thankyou to the island and plants that sheltered me, I pushed into the wind and waves.
Immediately my concentration went into balancing against the waves. Holding on to the sides of my boat, I embraced the wind as it blew me towards the shore. Quickly and fiercely the water pushed my vessel. As the wind whirled me about, I skimmed the waters surface and passed through long grasses until my coracle touched a section of safe sandy shore.
From the shore of loch Poit na h-I, I could see clearly in the misty morning the Crannog I had left not 50 meters from the shore. Then, I turned towards the old church, found my wheelbarrow and continued along the single track road towards Iona and a washing machine for my dirty clothes.
