Don’t miss the Eynhallow

There’s only one ferry back from Egilsay to Rousay. I repeat, only one ferry. I was anxious about missing it so I got to the pier half an hour early and, as it was blowing a gale, sheltered in the waiting room reading The Little General and the Rousay Crofters. There was lots of time, but I kept checking the clock on my camera, just to be sure. When there was still a whole ten minutes to go, I got up to check the pier. And there – pulling away from it – was the Eynhallow. Well I ran down that pier with everything tumbling from my bag, my arm stretched high, thinking, ‘This–is–a–complete–disaster’. There’s just about nothing on Egilsay apart from a ruined church where my great great great great grandparents got married, wild spring flowers, a corncrake trail without any corncrakes on it yet, and a beautiful white-sand beach from which only the crazy have a quick swim. I ran down that pier. And I next took a breath when the ferry stalled and started coming back. ‘I thought you left at 5pm!’ I gasped. ‘It’s ten past five,’ he said, and right enough, my camera clock was ten minutes slow. The main thing was that the deck was coming down and I would soon be stepping onto the last ferry back to Rousay. The crew and captain invited me for tea in the bridge and, as it turns out, I was the only passenger onboard!