Last year, in Arklow, we fell into conversation with a couple on a boat called Restless (Ann and Tim) on the strength of restless having “Stornoway” painted on her transom. Since we had hopes of getting here ourselves one day, this seemed sufficient grounds for a chat. It transpired she was actually from Oban, and it was they who first pointed us towards Peter May, a local author responsible for a trilogy of detective thrillers set up predominantly in Lewis and Harris. We have all now read them, and are agreed that they are really pretty good. A visit to the tourist information office gave us a leaflet and map identifying the key locations, and we have been treating the island as a literary I spy ever since.

We should note for the sake of accuracy, that the weather has been grim since our arrival and shows no sign of improving before Monday. As this is being written the wind is getting through the rigging at an alarming rate, comfortably over 25 knots, with a noise best described as something out of a cheap horror movie. Monday looks more promising, so in the meantime we have hired a small car for a couple of days of land-based sightseeing, weather having made the sea-based variety unadvisable.

The castle, it turns out, is a relative newcomer as these things go, nineteenth century, and for all its grandeur carries a history one would not choose to have inscribed on a family crest. One James Matheson made his fortune selling opium to the Chinese, a detail of particular interest to Yee Tak given the wider history of Hong Kong, and used the proceeds to buy up a dilapidated castle, which he then rebuilt entirely, having first cleared the local crofters and demolished a village that had the temerity to interrupt his view. A most public-spirited gentleman.

The attached museum, happily, redeems the visit, compact enough not to feel like a forced march, and full of genuinely good material on Hebridean life. A lovely lady there took us thoroughly under her wing, and was so taken with the subject of Alyth McCormack’s wedding that, well past closing time, she was still pulling photographs from drawers to talk us through a dress woven in fine white Harris Tweed. (Alyth McCormack is a noted local Gaelic singer, long associated with The Chieftains.)

From there we repaired to McNeill’s Bar, another haunt of Fin Macleod, Peter May’s detective, we are trying hard not to turn into some sort of Hebridean version of I-Spy, with limited success. It is a proper old-fashioned boozer, refreshingly unburdened by gastro-pub pretensions or artisanal olive oil.

The night delivered pounding rain and rigging-whistling wind in equal measure, neither showing the slightest inclination to ease off by dawn. We heard that a cruise ship, due in, had abandoned the attempt and pressed on to Iceland instead, apparently they could have got in well enough, but the forecast made getting back out again look unwise.

We started our little car tour by visiting the site of a disastrous shipwreck just ouside Stornaway. The Iolaire was carrying navy reservists home for leave when, with an inexperienced skipper and crew, she struck the rocks which we hasd passed just a day earlier. The sites of these tragedies are always quite emotional to visit, but this was made all the more poignant by the fact that we visited in a near gale and could understand the horror of men losing their lives just a few meters from the shore…

It became apparent to us, speaking to some local folk, that this is still a raw and needless tragedy which touched most families on Lewis…

Our little car excursion then took us through the geography of the novels proper: the house Fin grew up in, his aunt’s house, the site of the fictional body’s discovery, the church and the manse, all real, all rather wonderful to stand in front of. Despite the driving rain and gale-force wind, or perhaps somewhat because of them, we felt we were beginning to understand these remote and occasionally inhospitable islands — and perhaps even to glimpse why they might incline towards a dour and faintly vengeful strain of Christianity.

The little harbour at the very northern tip of Lewis, Point of Ness, seems impossibly tight and narrow to even think of entering in calm weather, let alone in the 140 out of 360 days when a gale blows…

The island tradition was of ‘Black Houses’…simple stone cottages with double thick walls and rooves of thatch held in place by netting and they feature heavily in the novels. The accommodation was often shared with the animals and a peat fire was lit right in the middle of the main living area. The village here, was inhabited until the early 70s when the last inhabitants were moved into modern council houses…

Peat is still very much in use as an everyday fuel…

The black houses were gradually replaced in the early 20th century by the ‘white houses’…

We ended up back at McNeill’s, where a local musician was giving the assembled company precisely what it wanted — everything from the Bonnie Banks o’ Loch Lomond to the Proclaimers’ 500 Miles — sung with tremendous enthusiasm by band and early-evening drinkers alike, the latter well on their way to becoming the genuine article.

…the sabbath…

Tesco have only recently been allowed to open on a Sunday (noon to 8pm to enable the locals to go to church), for the rest of Lewis and Harris (the ‘protestant’ islands) nothing is open…

Without even a hot coffee on offer, we pack a lunch and set out for the beaches of the very rugged West Coast. The drive is stunning and the landscape is rugged…and there is the inevitable norse chessman…

…and the beaches are incredible, tempting the hardier members of the crew in for a brief dip…

The weather is set fair for us to press on tomorrow, which will mean a reasonably early start, but for now, back aboard Heydays, we find ourselves musing on this corner of the Hebrides, and drawing, inevitably, comparisons with Orkney. This is, to our admittedly first impressions, a markedly less prosperous society, and one in which the rather austere Church of Scotland continues to exercise real influence. Sunday here is still observed as the Sabbath, and external entertainment is neither permitted nor, in practice, available. The towns lack something of the vibrancy and gaiety we found further north, though the scenery more than compensates. We find we can manage perfectly well without shops or pubs on a Sunday; it rather forces one into simply inhabiting the present, and being part of a place quite different from the frantic, consumption-driven south we normally call home.

It is also, we have noticed, a place that attracts a rather higher calibre of adventurous sailor than we are used to, a marked departure from the “only leave the marina on a fine day” school of seamanship more commonly encountered in Lymington. There was the New Zealand couple on their steel Van der Staadt, Dutch-built, currently planning a passage to Norway before crossing the Atlantic (for the third time) en route home. There was the Dutch singlehander who had just come in from the Faroes, two days of it thoroughly rough. And there was Restless, mentioned above, who completed their second Atlantic crossing only last year. These islands, it is fair to say, are not simply just another part of the country.

Footnote: A large French boat arrived in harbour this evening, with what appeared to be a very odd black and white flag flying. We then realise that this ‘flag’ was in fact a very large (and presumably very expensive) genoa split from tack to clew (side to side|). After a big struggle they finally got it under control and dropped on deck…this is a sober reminder that these waters can catch even the cautious and well prepared…