by Tim Severin
“Brendan still in sight,” he reported. “But cancel my previous estimate. She’ll be in Stornoway in three hours.”
We had shown ourselves just what an ocean-going curragh could do under ideal conditions, and our reward was a perfect ending for the dash up the Minch. The wind held with us all the way to Stornoway. We rounded the lighthouse in style, dropped the headsail and glided past the island ferryboat, its rail lined with waving passengers and crew. A figure beckoned us from the fishing-boat wharf, and we curled toward him. A word of command and the mainsail came quietly down. Arthur took two solid strokes on his oar. The tiller came over. And Brendan dropped neatly into her berth as though we had been sailing medieval boats all our lives.
“Ye’ve disappointed us,” said a glum-looking figure on the wharf with a doleful Scots face. “The boys in the lifeboat crew were hoping to have a bit of exercise pulling you in. Still,” he added, looking down at our strange craft, with splendid Gaelic pessimism, “you’ll probably keep ’em busy enough when you try to sail for Faroes. I canna say I would want to sail with you.”
7
THE SHEEP ISLANDS
It is just over two hundred miles from Stornoway to the most southerly island in the Faroes group, two hundred miles of open water, exposed to the full sweep of the Atlantic winds. Lying almost midway in the gap between Scotland and Iceland, the cluster of eighteen islands which form the Faroes rise abruptly from the water where the crest of a submarine ridge lifts briefly above the surface. One of the remotest places in Europe, the Faroes are in every way the offspring of the sea. The islanders depend upon the sea for their livelihood; at the age when most children are learning to ride bicycles, they already know how to handle the little boats in which they pass from island to island; and their daily lives are dominated by the huge Atlantic depressions which revolve slowly over their heads, obscuring the islands in thick wet clouds for most of the year, and bringing rain on two days out of every three. Both for Saint Brendan and our latter-day Brendan, the Faroes were a key point in their journeys. If the Navigatio did in fact describe the Stepping Stone Route to America as the Irish monks had used it, then the Faroes were the first logical long-distance staging post in the chain.
Damp and cloud-hidden, they lie far beyond the horizon from the Hebrides, and yet the Navigatio told how Saint Brendan and his monks had sighted a remote island and a favorable wind had brought them to shore. Landing, they set out to explore the place, and found large streams full of fish, and a great number of flocks of splendid white sheep, very large in size. They caught one of the sheep to make their Paschal meal, and on Good Friday while they were preparing their service, an islander appeared, bringing with him a basket of fresh bread. He came up to them, fell three times on his face before Saint Brendan, and asked him—presumably in a language he understood—to accept the gift of bread for their meal. Later, the same islander brought more fresh supplies to revictual their boat, and gave the travelers sailing directions for the next part of their voyage. And, in answer to Saint Brendan’s questions, he explained that the sheep on the island grew so large because they were not milked, but left alone in their pastures, and that the natural environment was so gentle that they could be left to graze day and night.
Several scholars have pointed out how closely this description of the Isle of Sheep fits the Faroes. The influence of the Gulf Stream produces comparatively mild winters in the Faroes, and the climate and pasture are suitable for sheep raising so that the islands have acquired a reputation for their sheep and wool. In fact, the present name of the islands is unchanged: it seems to be taken from the Norse words Faer-Eyjaer, meaning “Sheep Islands.” So the Vikings, too, when they reached the Faroes, gave the islands the same name as the Irish or, as likely, picked up the name from the previous inhabitants. As for the islander who gave Saint Brendan the bread, spoke his language, and understood the Christian calendar, there seems a reasonable possibility that he was another of the wandering clerics of the Irish church. The Navigatio calls him Procurator, a term applied to an administrator in the monastic hierarchy and usually translated as Steward. Also there is strong independent evidence to show that Irish monks had settled themselves in the Faroes at an early date. In 825 a learned Irish chronicler named Dicuil, who was employed at the royal Frankish court, set out to compile a geography book which he called The Book of the Measure of the World, because he intended to put down in it a description of every land known to mankind as described by the ancients. Dicuil had read many classical authors, but he complained that they really knew very little about the islands lying to the west and north of Britain, whereas he, Dicuil, could claim to describe them with some authority, because he had lived in some, visited others, or talked to Irish priests who had sailed even farther afield than himself, and had read their reports of the farthest islands.
“There are many other islands in the ocean to the north of Britain,” Dicuil wrote, “which can be reached from the northern islands of Britain in a direct voyage of two days and nights with sails filled with a continuously favorable wind. A devout priest told me that in two summer days and the intervening night he sailed in a two-benched boat and entered one of them.
“There is another set of small islands, nearly all separated by narrow stretches of water; in these for nearly a hundred years hermits sailing from our country, Ireland, have lived. And just as they were always deserted from the beginning of the world, so now because of the Northmen pirates they are emptied of anchorites, and filled with countless sheep, and very many diverse kinds of seabirds. I have never found these islands mentioned in the authorities.”
Dicuil’s description could be applied to the Faroes in several points: his “narrow stretches” of water between the islands describe very well the fjordlike channels between the Faroes; the distance by sea-voyage from the Orkneys or Shetlands north of Scotland is feasible in a light boat in good following winds; and the Faroes are renowned for their magnificent variety of bird-life, including enormous colonies of seabirds which nest in the sheer cliffs which surround most of the islands. This remarkable bird-life completes the circle which links the Faroes with Dicuil’s northern islands and with the Isle of Sheep in the Navigatio, because the Navigatio goes on to say that the Procurator directed Saint Brendan to stay at a nearby island which he told them was a Paradise of Birds. There, said the Procurator, the travelers would remain until the eve of Pentecost.
The possible identity of the Isle of Sheep and the Paradise of Birds with the Faroes occupied my thoughts in Stornoway as we prepared Brendan for her attempt at the sea passage. The run to the Faroes would be our first long-distance sea crossing, and though two hundred miles on the charts looked easy enough, it could turn out to be at least twice that distance if the winds were against us and Brendan had to follow a zig-zag course. No wonder in the old days the Hebridean fishermen had called the Faroes “the Faraways.” If we had really foul winds, then we were quite likely to miss the Faroes entirely. A single bad gale spewed from the prevailing westerlies could skittle Brendan past the Faroes and on toward Norway. In the days of sail, storm-driven fishermen from Shetland or Orkney had been carried clear across to the Norwegian coast and been forced to spend days in open boats of the same size as Brendan and far handier in sailing to windward than she was. They were the lucky ones: there had been many others who were lost in the fierce storms.
The glum looks of Stornoway’s professional fishermen did not help matters as they peered down at Brendan, lying in their harbor, and muttered dolefully among themselves. The Doubting Thomas of our arrival was a steady source of gloom. He kept reappearing with sea-wise questions which always ended in the same refrain. Once it was: “What do you use for ballast?”
“Water.”
“Aye. Stones would be better. There’s life in the stones. But water…. That’s bad. I wouldna want to sail with you.”
Or, another time: “How does she sail to wind?”
“She doesn’t really,” I called back.
“We’re lucky to get across at right angles to the breeze.”
“Not sail to wind. Och, that’s bad.” He sucked in through his teeth. “I wouldna want to sail with you.”
Sotto voce from behind me, Arthur’s Irish accent turned Scots for a moment and uttered a mocking warning—“We’re all doomed! Aye, we’re doomed for sure!”
Edan also banished any despondency. When we were ready to cast off from Stornoway, he suddenly slapped his forehead, cried aloud that he’d forgotten something, and leapt ashore, running off down the jetty with great gangling strides. Puzzled, we waited for nearly an hour. Then he came racing back at full tilt, waving a brown paper parcel.
“What’s so important?” George asked him.
“Couldn’t go without it,” blurted Edan breathlessly as he jumped aboard. “Unthinkable. Sorry I’m late, but I asked everywhere and finally got the last one in Stornoway.”
“But what is it?” repeated George.
“A bottle of Pimms!” Edan beamed. “I thought we needed something to mix with our drinks so that we can have cocktails on board.”
Sure enough, our Gannet had located the last bottle of Pimms in Stornoway, and his scheme extended to a pan of watercress seeds, which he secreted near his berth in order to grow a little greenery to decorate our drinks. Alas, on the second day he accidentally kicked over the Pimms bottle and spilled its contents stickily into the bilge, and soon afterward a wave deluged his cress tray, drowning Brendan’s only attempt at home gardening.
Stornoway’s returning trawler fleet gave us a cheerful farewell, tooting their sirens as Brendan sailed out and turned her bow northward. By the morning of June 17 we were well clear of the Butt of Lewis, the outer tip of the Hebrides.
Once again we were only four on board, as Rolf had to return home to Norway from Stornoway for urgent personal reasons. So I asked George to draw up a new watch-keeping rota because he, of all of us, put so much effort into his work that no one could begrudge his choice. Watch-keeping ruled our lives, and was the vital framework of our daily existence. Each man exercised strict self-discipline, and made sure he showed up for his watch at exactly the right time. To do less would have been unfair, and could have become precisely the sort of irritant that finally erupts into a blazing quarrel. Each of us knew that we were all living close together under very raw conditions. We were like men locked in a cell measuring thirty-six feet by eight feet—of which less than a quarter was actually sheltered and livable. Potential scope for argument and animosity was almost limitless, and minor irritations could be blown up into a cause for hatred. All of us knew the risks, and an outsider would have noted how, without prior discussion, we all adopted the traditional attitude of live-and-let-live aboard a small boat. By and large, we kept ourselves to ourselves and behaved accordingly. We might discuss modifications to the boat as a group, or make individual suggestions on technical matters. But personal topics were left strictly alone unless offered by the person concerned; and the final decisions in all matters affecting the voyage were left to the Skipper. It was a form of self-discipline which, at worst, might have left hidden grievances to marinate in secret bile; but as it turned out, we were all experienced enough as small-boat sailors to hold our tongues and keep our tempers, and there was no doubt that when we sailed out into the Atlantic, Brendan was an efficient and well-integrated boat.
Our daily lives were surprisingly easy. Under most conditions the helmsman’s main job was to keep a lookout for changes in the weather, especially for a shift of the wind, and to check that Brendan stayed on her set course. But no great accuracy was required at the helm. As the navigator I simply worked out the general direction in which we should sail, and the helmsman lashed the cross bar of the tiller with a leather thong so that Brendan stayed within twenty degrees of the right direction. She held her course well, and with so much leeway and the rapid wind shifts it was a wasted effort to be any more accurate. An easy-going attitude also meant that the stand-by watchman, whose task was to readjust the set of the sails as necessary, did not have to go clambering around in the waist of the vessel needlessly, picking his way past the clutter of stores and endlessly fiddling with the ropes or struggling to get the leeboard into a new position. Far better, I had decided, to let Brendan sail herself, and to adopt a medieval frame of mind, patient, and unharried. In medieval terms, a week or two added or subtracted to our passage was of no significance, and the benefits of our leisurely outlook were noticeable.
So we lived a relaxed existence. Edan and I divided up the cooking; Arthur and George usually did the dishes in a bucket of sea water. No one bothered to wash himself or to shave, because there was no need, and it would have been a waste of fresh water. Brendan’s leather and our sheepskins smelled far worse than we ever would, and it was too cold to relish the prospect of stripping off for a sea-water wash. Sanitary facilities varied according to the weather. One could either hang outboard at the stern, risking a cold slap from a wave, or in rougher seas use a bucket wedged securely amidships. But it was noticeable how reluctant everyone was to use these facilities when the wind blew strongly and the spray was flying, threatening the hapless victim with a cold shower.
Each person had his own area of responsibility. George made regular inspections of all the sailing gear, especially the ropes and halliards, which were subject to considerable wear. We were always digging out our sewing kits to mend tears or to whip the ends of frayed ropes. Every piece of the cordage needed constant adjustment, as the flax ropes stretched slack when dry and shrank into iron rods when wet. We found the best technique was to set them up as taut as possible when dry, and then keep them doused with water. Arthur was our rope specialist. His job was to keep the coils of rope neatly stowed and ready for action, and with so much rope on board it kept him busy. In between times he spent hours meticulously cleaning and maintaining the cameras which were recording Brendan’s life. Arthur had taken over the photography when Peter retired sick, and our youngest crew member was developing into a first-class cameraman. The delicate cameras seemed desperately fragile in his huge fists, but he had a gentle touch and a born mechanic’s skill in keeping them working despite the salt which constantly threatened to clog their shutters.
Navigation, ciné-photography, and radio communications fell within my province. Once every twenty-four hours I switched on the little radio set, scarcely bigger than a brief case, and tried to establish contact with a shore station. On most days we succeeded and, faint but audible, reported our position, which was relayed in turn to the Intelligence Unit of Lloyds of London, who were kindly keeping our families informed. Occasionally, however, we failed to establish any contact, which was hardly surprising as our transmitter operated with scarcely more power than a light bulb and our signals were radiating from a whip antenna tied by leather thongs to the steering frame. Even in a mild seaway, the swell over-topped the antenna. The sole source of power for the radio were two small car batteries, fed by a pair of Lucas solar panels lashed to the roof of the living shelter. These panels were only designed to give a slight charge of electricity, and so our radio time was strictly limited. If I failed to make contact in less than four minutes, I simply switched off the radio and tried again next day. Much of the credit for our successful communications went to the stout-hearted performance of our little radio, and to the skill and patience of the radio operators of the shore stations who kept a special schedule, listening out for Brendan at a time when the airwaves were uncluttered by other traffic.
Navigation was simplicity itself. After leaving Stornoway I relied on sun-sights taken with a sextant and cross-checked on radio bearings. But once again there was no real need for great accuracy. We were interested only in keeping a general track of our progress, and allowing the currents and winds to do the rest. Brendan was too awkward to allow us to set a fine course or select a precise target. I was content merely if we raised landfalls, roughly where we expected them, along the Stepping Stone Route.
Edan, tr
ue to character, provided the light entertainment on board. We all knew when he woke up in the morning by the cries of “Food! Breakfast! How about breakfast!” which came echoing down the boat from his cubby-hole near the foremast. A few minutes later Gannet himself would come clambering into view, eagerly poking his nose into the food locker. His clothes were never the same two days running. One day he had his beret on his head; another a knitted cap; once a knotted handkerchief. His oilskin jacket might be replaced by an old sweater, or a furry diver’s undersuit, which made him look like an enormous baby in a pram suit. Once he showed up in a tweed sports jacket and tartan trousers, and was greeted with shouts of delight; another time he arrived in Oriental garb, a flimsy Indian cotton shirt, embroidered, and with its shirt tail flapping in the breeze like a Calcutta clerk. He must have been freezing cold, for—as usual—his feet were bare. Quite where Edan concealed this extraordinary wardrobe in the tiny space of his sleeping berth, no one could fathom. Yet he still managed to dig out packet after packet of cigars which he had laid in, duty free, at Stornoway. Now he offered them to his shipmates, who looked slightly green at the prospect, but Edan smoked them with jaunty aplomb.
And of course Edan always had his schemes. Each one was more unlikely than the last, but advertised with the same boundless enthusiasm. Daily there was some new dish he promised to cook us—only at the last minute he found he lacked the vital ingredient, or, more likely, there was none left after he had finished “tasting” it in the pan. Twice a day he devised an ingenious new sort of bait for his fishing line which trailed forlornly over Brendan’s stern, but the only fish he ever caught was a single limp mackerel, half-drowned by the time he pulled it in, rather to his own surprise. Once he very nearly made his own curtain call, cigar in mouth, when he managed to refill the water jug with cooker kerosene instead of fresh water, and on another occasion he blithely hung up his homemade sleeping bag liner—the product of another scheme—to dry in the riggings only he forgot about it, and saw the liner twitch itself free and go dancing off across the waves like a runaway parachute while the rest of us chortled. Edan, in fact, was our tonic. His bubbling spirits enlivened even the dreariest intervals.