Plans Afoot - Rock Climbs, Lighthouses & Islands

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All of a sudden it is Autumn! The evenings are noticeably drawing in, there is chill to them too and I noticed this morning in Aros Park how the trees are changing colour. Many people tell me they love this season best of all but for me, it feels like a sad one. The long, warm summer days have come to an end and the prospect of a long dark winter ahead never fills me with eager anticipation. I have lived for well over half my life in the northern hemisphere but originating from the African tropics as I do, my blood runs thin and I am not a winter person. I love the warmth and of course the sunshine too.

This sense of sadness is heightened with an awareness I’ve missed most of the summer because of a long and lingering dose of severe depression. For two months I was laid low because of my recurring illness, incapacitated by severe low mood, dark thoughts of suicide and a general debilitating energy sapping malaise. Thankfully I seem to be on my way towards wellness again, though I have to say it seems like an achingly slow road. Despite my continuing lethargy and sometimes crippling anxiety, I’m once more looking ahead, rather than negatively inwardly.

A week ago I turned 58 and this gave me cause to consider what I wanted from my year ahead. I want to be well, that goes without saying. I want to enjoy adventures and I want to strengthen my connection to the natural world I inhabit. I have a desire too to reconnect with old friends and to meet new ones too. For too long, probably the last ten years, I’ve lived a solitude existence, far away from core friendships which are so important to me. On the other hand I have forged many genuine friendships through my social media presence, many of who I have yet to meet in person. It is my hope, I will realise many of these friendships in the months and year to come.

My Quiet Place in My Shed With My Three Books of Inspiration, A Climbing Harness & My Treasured Map Of West Coast Scotland.

Here is my plan to make these aspirations happen. I treated myself to a book I used to love trawling through when I worked as an instructor with Outward Bound. It was a staple of all the Outward Bound staff rooms I had the pleasure of enjoying through the years. ‘Classic Rock’, a coffee table book, is a wonderful compilation of the finest easy-(ish) rock climbs in the British Isles. It’s a book from the late 1970s when rock climbing was beginning to become a popular and an easily accessible activity. I was introduced to traditional multi-pitch climbing in the Moelwyns in North Wales in 1984. From that first route, ‘Slick’, a wonderful 80 metre rambling route graded Very Difficult (VDiff), I became an avid climber. I was never accomplished, in that I climbed the harder grades but I did enjoy the long ‘big boot’ routes (as I termed them) found on the innumerable crags and mountains of Wales, the Lake District and Scotland. These are the routes which feature in the book I recently bought. None of these routes is harder than Very Severe (VS), most being graded VDiff. The grade Very Difficult is really a misnomer. It describes a route which is easy to follow, enjoys positive hand holds and foot holds, and generally provides an enjoyable stress free ascent of the mountain crag. There will be some moments when the pulse may run somewhat faster, but this will probably be because of a sense of exposure rather than any actual difficulty.

It is usual in traditional multi-pitch rock climbing to climb in pairs, with a good friend, where one person takes the lead and the other becomes the second. I won’t go into the ins and outs of the traditional multi-pitch rock climbing process suffice to say, if the route is rewardingly challenging, then the pair will leave the crag with a sense of accomplishment and a wonderful shared memory to return to.

Anyway, my plan is to climb as many of the Scottish routes described in ‘Classic Rock’ in the year to come (such as Cioch Direct on the Isle of Skye featured in the adjacent slide show, climbed with Mrs LifeAfloat). I might venture south to the Lake District to complete a few there, but the reality will be I’ll struggle to climb even half the twenty six featured Scottish routes which are widely spread around the Highlands and Islands. My intention is to use the excuse of pairing up for a rock route as a means of reconnecting with old friends and maybe meeting new ones too. I remember with fondness many of the fine shared moments in the mountains and on exposed circuitous routes with Outward Bound friends in my distant past.

When we moved onto our yacht in 2012, I gave away all my rock climbing gear which is something I hugely regret. This means I have to build my kit up from scratch which is no mean feat given the expense of rock climbing gear now. My jaw drops when I look at the prices of essential items! However, it does mean I will have brand new kit and not be using my previously questionable out of date gear, much of which I had owned since the mid-80s. I’m certainly going to have to up my game with my creativity and sell a lot of jewellery and art to afford kitting myself out again.

Karen recently bought me a wonderful book written by Donald S Murray about Scotland’s Lighthouses. I have often thought it would be a lovely project to visit as many of these structures in my sea kayak. I will have paddled past a large number of them in 2015 when I circumnavigated Scotland and the Islands. However, there are many I have yet to see and there are those I have seen but would like to visit ashore. I think it’s because of my ease with solitude and wildness which makes the thought of being a light house keeper a romantically appealing one for me. I love the thought of living a simple but structured existence somewhere on the remote and wild Scottish coastline, or island or indeed, a rocky skerry. It is the lighthouses constructed on the latter which prove the most challenging for me to reach and land on, such as Skerryvore Lighthouse perched on a jagged rocky reef, washed by heavy Atlantic swells, sixteen kilometres south west of the Isle of Tiree.

Corsewall Point Lighthouse, Galloway

Again it would be lovely to share these kayaking lighthouse visitations with friends, sharing delight in exploring the intricacies of the Scottish coastline and camping overnight in remote and hard to reach wild locations.

This is certainly not a project I would hope to complete in my 58th year. It’s very much a long term one and probably will not be fully realised before I’m to old to paddle safely far offshore. Another long term project is visiting as many of the 900+ Scottish the islands before it’s time to hang up my kayaking paddles for good. Many of these islands are eloquently described in Haswell-Smith’s beautifully illustrated, hugely informative and well researched coffee table book, ‘The Scottish Islands’. As it is for for many mountaineers and walkers, ticking off the list of Munros, the 282 mountain peaks above 914 metres in height in Scotland, there is a compelling desire within me to visit as many of the Scottish islands as possible by kayak. If I trawled through my memories, I’m certain I’ll create a pretty long retroactive list of islands I have already landed on. I intend too, to resurrect my idea of sleeping on a different island off the Isle of Mull every month in my bivvy bag (under the stars) and this is certainly a project which will keep me entertained for the next twelve months. In resurrecting this plan, I’ll make more of an effort to raise the profile of Odyssey, the cancer charity I’m very proud to be an ambassador for.

What I have outlined above may seem overly ambitious, especially for a increasingly overweight man no longer enjoying the nimble fitness of his youth. Indeed, I am mindful of being cautious and not setting myself aspirations which will be too challenging to attain. There is the danger too of shooting out of the trap like a greyhound after a hare and ending up brought up short and winded, because I’m simply too eager to be well again. This is a familiar experience for me and the consequences for not managing this carefully can be dangerous because I might find myself tumbling backwards into another deep depression, experiencing a sense of failure and inadequacy. There is a fine line between being ambitious and over ambitious. I think I have tended to relate to the latter and generally I have got away with my chutzpah. I think for me, what I enjoy most in planning these adventures is the creation of them in my mind and wondering about their possibility and potential. I often say to folks that the advent of Google Earth has been a dangerous tool for me - it’s all to easy for me to draw a line from one place to another and say to myself, I can kayak that. I simply love reading maps, noticing intriguing spots in the landscape, checking these out on Google Earth, and then dreaming of visiting them. There is sometimes a sense of rising panic within me when I realise I probably do not have enough lifetime left to visit all the places I want to in Scotland!

I need these adventurous aspirations to work towards for the motivation they provide. It’s not enough to tell myself I will simply get out into the wilds whenever I feel like it, because now I’m living comfortably ashore again, I’ve somewhat lost the incentive to get outdoors because I feel separated from the natural realm. Now I have a warm and cosy shed to work in, it’s all too easy for me to hunker down in there day after day, losing sight of my adventurous roots and the earthy anti-depressant qualities of Nature.

It’s all too easy for me to be tough on myself with high expectations and a strong drive to achieve. However, by setting out these aspirations for my 58th year, I’m hopeful I’ll inspire myself to become active again and to make a meaningful connection to the world I live in.

My story continues.

World Mental Health Awareness Week - Friday - Nurturing My Nature

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My parents tell me as soon as I could walk, I would trot alongside my Dad through the bush down to the sandy dry Mzingwane River when we lived at West Nicholson in Matabeleland, Zimbabwe (then Southern Rhodesia). By the age of five I regularly went out with him on ‘Patrol’ into the wild and uninhabited lowveld bush around Triangle in Zimbabwe where we would sleep under the stars beside languid rivers within which the eyes of Crocodiles would be reflected back by torchlight, wake in the night with Hippo grazing around us, and get up in the dawn to watch the sun rise over the African bush from the high vantage point of a granite domed kopje (a low rocky hill, pronounced koppie). My early life memories are infused with many encounters with the wild, learning to walk silently on the balls of my feet, to sit for hours at a time without flinching, silent, eying the fringes of the bush for movement and the eventual reward of a wildlife sighting. How to follow animal spoor, interpreting their size and their intentions. How to simply ‘be’ in the wild, appreciating the fecundity of nature around me. Our family holidays were always camping trips to isolated parts of the country where we immersed ourselves in the wilderness, absorbing every nuance it had to offer.

Moving to Britain in my early teens, I continued to live a life where the open air and wide spaces were integral to my existence. Not one to follow a more usual teenage pathway, many of my weekends were spent camping on Bredon Hill in Worcestershire where sitting by a campfire was more fun than partying in friends houses. Later I would hitchhike to the Lake District whenever I had the chance to immerse myself in the fells and explore the mountain tops. My academic studies took second place to my passion for my involvement in the Duke of Edinburgh Gold Award and the school Combined Cadet Force. I volunteered as a Cotswold Country Park Warden building stiles and dry stone walls. I learned to fly gliders solo before I could drive and every weekend I would head out into the country to explore, history and nature being my passions.

It was no wonder then, I miserably failed my academic studies and my pathway into adulthood led me further into the world of outdoor activities and adventure. At the age of twenty one I became an instructor for Outward Bound and the rest as they say, is history. My life since then has been incredibly rich where I have been privileged to have shared so many wonderful moments of sheer outdoor joy with friends, colleagues and course participants and clients. I have worked in Wales, the Lake District, Lesotho, South Africa, Zimbabwe and Scotland, all the while facilitating personal development awareness for a huge range of people, young and adult. All these experiences have imbued a richness in my life which to be truthful, I find difficult to quantify. Suffice to say, I am truly grateful for the thousands of opportunities I have faced.

Now at the moment, my life is governed by my recovery from severe depression. As best I am able, I continue to live a life of wild outdoor connection where I take myself sea kayaking along the incredible Scottish coastline and set myself reasonable personal challenges. I love nothing more than spending nights out under canvas, somewhere silent and empty of humans. Key to my recovery process is nurturing my natural draw to nature and a need for personal adventure. Without access to this, I very much doubt I would have sufficient meaning within my life to inspire me to keep up the fight.

Outwith the moments of insight in the depths of my depression, my most powerful personal life lessons have occurred during my adventures. There are innumerable moments when my experiences in the wild have proved to be potent metaphors for my life and ones I continue to draw on time and again. In the moments when I’m in the desperate grip of a depressive episode, it’s these metaphorical insights which help me maintain a semblance of self-identity. For example, when asked who I am and what I do, I say my name and that I’m a sea kayaker. I do not qualify this but within myself I know I am a person who is an adventurer with a deep connection to the wild and natural realms. My adventuring spirit does not pit me against nature, but immerses me within it so I come up against myself. It is within this process I learn the most about who I am and my life. In tomorrow’s blog I will explain this in greater detail.

Nurturing my natural connection to nature is fundamental for my existence. I believe this to be true for millions of people too and there is nothing extraordinary in claiming this truth for myself. However, it’s not until recently I have fully embodied this awareness and to some extent, given myself permission to accept its validity. I think I continued to hold onto the notion of fitting myself into societal norms and certainly undertaking a more cautionary medically influenced approach to my recovery from depression. I am not out of the woods by a long stretch, but my understanding of my recovery and the importance of my nature within this is far clearer. There are hurdles to overcome and these require considerable focus on my part. Essentially, I continue to struggle with the belief I do not hold worth and until I rationalise this, my potential for change and success will continue to be locked within me. Paradoxically, it is through my adventures and my natural experiences where I challenge these notions of worthlessness, and again this is why it’s crucial for me to nurture my nature.

My story continues.

World Mental Health Awareness Week 2020 - Monday

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The theme for this years World Mental Health Awareness Week is kindness. This appeals to me greatly and I hope to expand on this when I write a daily blog over the coming week. My intention is to mark this week with personal insights into living with and recovering from severe mental health issues. Having kindness as the theme will certainly assist me in remaining grounded in one of my strongest recovery tenets, this being “be kind to myself”.

It’s probably best if I write an update about my recovery so far. It’s difficult to believe this time last year I was in hospital suffering from the worst episode of depression I had encountered. Indeed, I had attempted to end my life by jumping from the Isle of Mull ferry. You can read about this incident from an earlier blog post here. This hospital admission was tough for me but it provided me with the best opportunity for recovery I had experienced in many years. I returned home after three months on the ward with a renewed sense of self and a determination to overcome my illness.

As is often the case, the few months after hospital are the most hopeful for me and indeed, it seemed as if opportunities were falling into my lap. We made a significant change to our lifestyle by moving ashore from seven years of living on a yacht. This in itself was a huge investment in my recovery process because I hadn’t realised how insular my life had become on the boat. With recovery comes aspirations and I confidently made plans for the months to come and the following year ahead.

I wasn’t alone. I continued to receive generously warm professional support from my Community Psychiatric Nurse and regular appointments with the Psychiatrist. My wife too, as always, was the bedrock in assisting me maintain clarity and remain grounded when instability threatened. My wider family too were just a phone call away with their expressions of love and support. Friends and online acquaintances provided me with friendship and connection which helped me gain a sense of myself in the world.

The months leading up to the Christmas and New Year passed in a blur and I find it difficult to remember anything of note from that period. Mostly I recall a huge sense of relief of having made it out of the crisis I had found myself in earlier in the year.

I think my mood was dipping before Christmas but in the January of this year, I descended into a bout of deep depression. This time there was no catalyst, nothing I could define as a trigger. The winter months have always been tough for me but this itself was not the cause. It was another battle with my inner demons and my existential angst. The spectre of suicide became a concern for me again and this time, because I had made the attempt almost a year before, I knew I had it within me to carry through my desire to take my life. Quite simply, I believed once more, I have nothing to offer and my presence in the world is a burdensome waste. Allied with this was the increasing exhaustion of continually fighting to remain alive, indeed , merely function. Because I dipped so low again, I was on stand by for another hospital admission to keep me safe.

Thankfully, and for no discernible reason, I have climbed out of the black pit I lived in since Christmas. It has been as recent as two or three weeks I have lost all thoughts of suicide and self-destructive thinking. I find myself enjoying my engagement with the world again. Hope is welling up within me once more and this is expressed in my increased activity. My connection with the outdoors has been a constant through my life which has served to enhance it even when I’m at my lowest. However, it’s always a sound indication of my recovery levels when I notice my positive presence in the outdoor realm. This is the first step to regaining a sense of self-worth. Despite the inhibitive lockdown, I have managed some wonderful long walks where I have relished my immersion within the wild landscapes I’m fortunate to live close to, even wild camping one night a week.

In an attempt to break my cycle of depression, earlier this year I had announced 2020 to be my year of adventure. I made a fairly good start too by bivouacking in some pretty challenging weather conditions (and enjoying this!). However, frustratingly, the pandemic brought me up short and like everyone else, I have been twiddling my thumbs aching to get back out in my kayak and venturing further afield. Despite my inactivity, I have used this time to evaluate the importance of adventure and wildness in my life. This time has been helpful for me to write about this and to plan future expeditions. Moreover, I have been honing the incredibly useful process of mindfulness, particularly during my periods of lockdown outdoor exercise.

I am in recovery from my depression, an almost continual and fluctuating process. At long last, once more, I see my potential and recognise my value. The key is maintaining this awareness and strengthening the foundations. I hope by sharing my insights every day this week, I will help raise awareness of what it means to live with chronic life threatening depression and the continual hope of recovery from this.

Decisions - always decisions!

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As I write this, my name is on the waiting list for a bed on Succouth Ward, the psychiatric unit at the hospital in Lochgilphead. Despite a seemingly turn towards the better, I find myself yet again with compulsions to end my life. I am desperately exhausted from the interminable conversations I have with myself about keeping on going in the hope life will become better. Over the last week, I have found myself at the point of making an impulsive choice - almost as if I were standing on the gunwale of the ship before leaping. The draw of inestimable peace death would bring from the anguish I feel, is deeply attractive in these moments.

What stops me?

Well, the very struggle I speak of. The struggle to remain alive and not accede to the final demands my illness is asking of me. It’s a constant process of accounting for the pros and cons!

I do not want to go back to hospital. This would seem to be an unforgivable failure after my ebullient discharge last August. Yet, I crave the peace and safety hospital will provide. A place where I am able to attend to my illness without fighting with it out of sight of the world. I have wonderful plans for the year ahead, and if I go into hospital, a fair chunk of time will be lost and plans will go awry. Yet, if I give myself time to recover again, I’ll be stronger for the rest of the year.

I’m not one to follow the easy route and there is a fighting spirit within me which encourages me to hang tight, see this bout through, and find myself much stronger to face the year ahead. The risk here, in one of my deeply unhappy moments. my impulsiveness will win and that will be me.

While I was struggling with these thoughts I was reminded about difficult decisions I found myself facing when kayaking around Shetland in 2015. I went into my incomplete book about this journey and found the chapter detailing my Shetland experiences. Reading this again, I find the parallels run deep and this is incredibly helpful for me.

I hope when reading the excerpt below, you may see the connections.

Shetland – excerpt.

I worked out I had four days of paddling ahead of me to complete the circumnavigation of mainland Shetland to reach Lerwick. The forecast was mixed with strong winds promised for much of the week ahead. There were a couple of exposed sections of coastline to contend with, particularly Esha Ness with a reputation for rough seas and few places for a kayaker to find shelter. For the briefest of moments, I pondered portaging
from the west side of mainland Shetland to the eastern side into Sullom Voe over the curiously named Mavis Grind, a neck of land which separated the west seas from the east. Mavis Grind it turned out when I asked Hylton, wasn’t a 1950s dance but a derivation from Old Norse meaning gate of the narrow isthmus. The isthmus, under thirty-five metres wide at its narrowest section, is the land link between the Northmavine
Peninsula and mainland Shetland. Even though portaging here would considerably reduce my journey to Lerwick, I wanted to enjoy the achievement of kayaking around the whole of the island.

I Hope This Helps

In hindsight, as Hylton suggested, I ought to have stayed at Aith another two days, because shortly after setting off I found myself struggling into the teeth of a minor gale. The winds were from the north west, the direction I was heading. I paddled slowly out of Aith Voe, one laboured paddle stroke after another, realising I was exiting a natural and excruciatingly long wind tunnel. I cursed my stubbornness in insisting I would press on, no matter what. As I struggled to gain forward momentum, my conscience niggled with criticisms of my impetuousness. I mouthed silent thanks I left Aith too early in the morning for folks to spot me struggling away up the voe.

Eventually I passed Papa Little island and crossed to the island of Muckle Roe. Along the shore here I was out
of the worst of the wind and I caught up with myself a little, this respite easing my bad temper. Despite the wind, the day was gloriously sunny, the sea glittering with thousands of dancing diamonds. I looked up at the Scandinavian influenced farmsteads and dwellings and felt again the exoticness of being somewhere wonderfully foreign. I turned from Busta Voe, a name which made me smile because it sounded like a 1980s Ska singer, under the bridge linking Muckle Roe to the mainland, and into Roe Sound. Ahead of me through the narrow stretch of water was the expansive St Magnus Bay across which, nine miles away, was the rugged headland of Eshaness. The wind was blasting down Roe Sound and once more, I found myself digging my paddle blades deeply hard with sweat inducing effort to make headway.

I was less than a mile from Turvalds Head (who was Turvald I wondered?) This was the point where I faced the choice to turn eastwards for Mavis Grind and the short portage into what assuredly would be the easier seas of Sullom Voe or press onwards towards the Eshaness headland. Choosing the Mavis Grind route would ensure I would have the wind behind me thus significantly easing the remainder of the route to Lerwick. As I reached forward over another choppy wave and pulled hard, crossing into Sullom Voe was deeply attractive. I was sorely tempted by the prospect of easier paddling, another shoulder wrenching paddle stroke over a steepening wave, emphasising the point. I told myself however, it was yet half an hour before the requirement to make this crucial decision.

The forecast before I departed, assured me the strong north westerly winds would persist for at least two days, possibly three. I realised now, if I continued up the west coast of Shetland, I would significantly struggle against them. The seas off Eshaness would be nasty and recalling my fearful experience along the west coast of Orkney, I didn’t want to face those conditions again. It seemed to me wisdom should prevail and with a heavy heart I was close to acceding to the inevitable. The glitter went from the day despite the diamonds continuing to dance about me. Despite the wiser prospect of easier conditions in Sullom Voe, my disappointment was palpable. My heart was set on completing a circumnavigation of Shetland mainland. It seemed to me my journey was in danger of unravelling. I was losing purpose. My original somewhat ambitious plans for my adventure, had included paddling right up to Muckle Flugga, the most northerly piece of land in the British Isles. In the cosy comfort of the small saloon aboard our yacht, and with the alluring
aid of Google Earth, I had glibly drawn a route to this most northern point without much thought for the reality of the weather conditions I now faced in a rather bleak Roe Sound. As ever with a decision such as this, there were variables to consider, each validly presented. My task now was to sort through these in a logical fashion wisely arriving at an eventual choice.

The natural realm, the great outdoors as we often like to call it, tests me in many ways. From the dawn of
time, humans have pitted themselves against the elements. I would imagine for hunter gatherer peoples thousands of years before, the natural environment was their world, the milieu where they lived, thrived, and coexisted with wild beasts in this mutually shared space. I could not imagine they sought to climb a
mountain simply because it was there. Even paddling an animal skin boat along the coast because they saw this purely as a personal challenge. I imagined for them, life held primary purposes; gathering food, finding shelter, and protecting their children. The essentials of life. As humans moved away from a transient
lifestyle to one of settlement and permanent shelter, our aspirations through the millennia shifted and altered to the point where, here I was, a modern human, sitting in my kayak, on a wind whipped Shetland sea, enjoying the luxury of fulfilling a personal aspiration to kayak around Scotland. If there was no life sustaining purpose for me being here such as hunting for food, what did this moment serve me? What did it matter if I chose to cross Mavis Grind and curtail my circumnavigation of Shetland, instead of pushing further westwards to realise my aspiration for a Shetland circumnavigation? I wasn’t going to starve.

The answer to my insistent rhetorical inquisition was this; the personal purpose of my adventure was indeed life sustaining. It was offering me an important opportunity for growth and development. Physis is a Greek word which describes an innate natural force within every living entity which drives us to grow. In humans, physis refers to the energy invested in health and the expansion of our personal horizons. This is the urge to do something different, the aspiration to be who we want to be, and to choose our destiny. Good mental health is not only the outcome of sound relationships but also the fulfilment of essential universal drives within us including belonging, self-fulfilment and survival.

Physis involves change. No living thing can avoid change, we are constantly in the process of evolution. However, because we crave equilibrium, continuity, and safety in our lives, change is often difficult to accept. We hold onto what we know because this provides us with certainty. This desire for stability is called homeostasis, the opposite to physis. Humans are therefore pulled by these two opposing forces, homeostasis and physis. It is this unresolved struggle which underpins the struggles many, like me, face when making life choices.

Unpleasant Conditions Around Lang Head

My struggle with clinical depression is most likely an outcome of this tussle within me, which is why, suddenly, the decision to complete the circumnavigation of mainland Shetland or cut it short, had become a vitally important one for me to resolve. It wasn’t simply a matter of portaging into Sullom Voe to avoid the winds. It was about the importance I placed on facing, or not facing, the challenge the strong winds presented. Homeostasis determined I would seek the less demanding route, to ensure I maintained my schedule and avoided the probability of serious and demanding sea conditions. Physis on the other hand, invited me to push on, even though success was uncertain and there was a high probability of becoming storm bound with inevitable delays. I think having worked as an Outward Bound instructor, assisted me with rationalising the presenting facts of the issue, ascertaining the consequences if these are ignored or considered. The underpinning factor is personal safety, so if there were an indication the task being considered was
completely reckless, would determine an immediate avoidance. Though, if the risks were such serious harm may occur but with care, could be avoided, then the task was worthy of consideration.

It would be simple to avoid the complexities within the decision-making process, to not heed them or desire self-understanding. For me though, this would diminish the opportunity for self-awareness. I consider this to be integral to an adventure experience. Without understanding, there is no wisdom to be gained. It was clear from the outset that my journey around Scotland was so much more than simply visiting the lifeboat stations. It was an opportunity for me to gain deeper insights into my ‘self’. This would help me grow into the older man I hoped to become. I didn’t want to slide into my old age. I wanted to arrive with as much energy and enthusiasm for life as I had when I was in my twenties.

So it was, with renewed determination Turvals Head slowly slipped behind me. I continued out into the steep and uncomfortable waves of St Magnus Bay. The 1950’s dance, Mavis Grind would be enjoyed another time. Despite my resolve to face my adventure head on, shortly after setting out into the bay, uncomfortable sea conditions seriously challenged me. I had previously coped with trickier conditions but somehow, I wasn’t in a
sound frame of mind to cope with this continuous onslaught of broken waves and a powerfully gusting head wind. Searching as far ahead as I was able to, I saw conditions around Lang Head, my next headland, were dreadful. Even from my sea level elevation I could see an angry race kicked up by wind over tide. I was
faced with another crucial decision. I was able to turn back to Mavis Grind or I could find somewhere to stop nearby in the hope the conditions eased during the day. Pressing on around the headland in these conditions was not an option.

My Island Neighbours

I resolutely held onto my desire to round Shetland. I pressed on another mile through some lively seas to a small island called Egilsay where with a relieved scrunch, I landed on a shiny pebble beach. A small cohort of common seals welcomed me in, snorting and splashing in the waters behind me. I pulled the kayak up the stones and wandered over to the far side of the island where I would gain a better view of Lang Head. From a
raised elevation it was immediately clear to me I had made a wise decision not to attempt to get around. It would be a nasty piece of water to be kayaking alone in these windy conditions. I wandered back to the boat and dug out my flask of lemon and ginger tea, always a soothing drink when my mind is troubled, and I need to think things through. I had managed only ten miles out of the thirty I had hoped for in the day. If I stopped here, the wind would only increase in strength and I would be stuck for a couple of days at least, the seas around Lang Head worsening in the near gale force north-westerly. I looked morosely back to where I had come from minutes before. The entrance to the short voe leading to Mavis Grind was clearly visible, only a mile away. With the wind behind me, I would reach there in no time at all and within the hour I would be unpacking my kayak and portaging my kit, my boat and myself across into the sheltered waters of Sullom Voe. I sighed deeply, noticing the seals looking back at me, almost it seemed with sympathetic gazes.

“Fuck!” I shouted and was immediately answered with a few splashes in the small bay as my profanity
caused some alarm. “Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!”

I was fed up with the winds and I was fed up with what seemed to be a continual process of evaluation and
re-evaluation. Why couldn’t I simply enjoy a carefree passage along this stunning Shetland coastline? Was fate trying to tell me something?

I refused to entertain the idea of giving up on the circumnavigation and belligerence within me mobilised my inert body. I heaved myself to my feet and set about unpacking the kayak, making a comfortable camp on sun warmed short cropped turf a few metres away from the beach. My mind was unyielding. I would sit out the gales on this island after which, I would complete my circumnavigation of Shetland.

Adventurer

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The Cambrian News described me as an adventurer when they wrote an article about my 3 Peaks by Kayak fundraising journey, (link here). It was strange for me to see myself described as such and this made me think about the concept of adventure per se and that of being an adventurer. 

Strangely, despite having lived my life immersed in the outdoors working as a guide and outdoor instructor, experiencing myriad incredible adventurous experiences for myself and undertaking some fairly major expeditions, I have not viewed myself specifically as an adventurer. This is a title I bestow on others who I deem more worthy of the description than me. I guess, I consider my efforts benign in comparison to what other folks have achieved. Seeing the word attributed to me in the newspaper article at first caused me to cringe a little, but then I glowed with a sense of self-recognition. I'm interested why this simple attribution is important to me. 

First of all, it is important because it is a form of recognition. There is a drive within every human to be positively recognised for who we are. We consciously or unconsciously live our lives in such a way so that we receive attention and acknowledgement which can only be provided by another person or people. I'm never going to be recognised for academic prowess or business acumen, so finding myself acknowledged for achieving something worthwhile in a field I'm adept at is particularly rewarding. 

Secondly, as I reach the later years of my life, I realise the importance of my legacy - the story or stories which will be recounted about me after I have departed this world. I don't want to pass through this existence without a worthy epitaph to mark my presence. This may seem a vain aspiration but as with being recognised for who I am in this present life, I would like there to be a memory of me having contributed meaningfully during my life. If this is as an 'adventurer', then I'll be happy with this. 

Ever since I stopped working for Outward Bound twenty years ago, I have struggled to define myself with any certainty. I suppose rather tongue in cheek I could confidently call myself a Jack of All Trades. I tried my hand in the Mental Health sector, trained in psychotherapy and ran a private practice for a few years, developed a form of 'wilderness therapy' and when I ceased this, a number of other minor job roles including sea kayak guiding. I wouldn't say that I was unsuccessful at any of those roles, it's just that I didn't fit them - they didn't fit me. Maybe I'm a rolling stone, unable to settle in any profession. If this is the case, then defining myself as an adventurer will be the ideal solution, for this is exactly what the specifications for this title demands - a person willing to roll as a stone, meeting and overcoming uncertainty along the way, maybe living with discomfort and undertaking arduous ventures. 

I have to admit there is an element of discomfort for me with the term adventurer. In this age of social media sound bytes and instant fame, there appears to me to be commodification of adventure as a means of shameless self-promotion. The outdoors becomes a playground, the environment barely given a second glance in the race for the perfect adventure photo, for example a blazing camp fire on virgin Hebridean Machar or a dune buggy roaring over pristine sands. I'm not suggesting that adventurers are disconnected from nature but it pains me when I see Nature being exploited for purely egoistic gain. Maybe I hold a naïve view that to be an adventurer who journeys through the wild and natural realms, one needs to do so with reverent mutuality, viewing Nature as an equal partner in the enterprise.

Being an adventurer carries responsibility and it's role which can be a force for good. People look upon adventurers as sources for inspiration. This is one of the responsibilities I find myself accepting with serious intent. Particularly so because I have chosen to associate my endeavours with raising awareness about mental health, depression, suicide awareness and recovery. I recognise that through my profile I have a stronger voice to air my knowledge about these important subjects. Actually, this is one of the motivating factors in me deciding to follow the path of becoming an adventurer - to use this as a platform to highlight the issues surrounding depression. 

Of course I can only be an adventurer if I continue to embark on adventures. I don't anticipate this being an arduous arrangement to fulfil but it does come with costs and these aren't just financial. I will be required to be away from home and separated from my wife for long periods of time. This is probably the toughest aspect of adventuring for me. I feel guilt at not being home to assist with daily home life, particularly since we live on a boat and this requires some extraordinary chores like having to row Ziggy ashore for his walks. This can become an arduous chore if it is not shared. Of course separation is tough and can put strain on the marriage. I have many times wondered how early explorers managed to maintain successful marriages despite living abroad for months if not years at a time. In this day and age though, our means of communicating with loved ones is far more advanced. I am thankful and grateful that Karen supports my desire for adventures, recognising this as a positive force for my continued good health and personal growth. Being away for long periods of time also impacts life in general; missing friends, missing out on social events and negating community voluntary duties such as the RNLI Tobermory Lifeboat in my case.

As with any chosen path in life, the benefits have to outweigh the negatives. It's not as if I am consigned to this role against my will, being the only opportunity within my grasp. The choice is mine and if the costs are too great then it's a simple decision to take a step back, reassessing what's important and what changes can be made. For the moment, though much of my life has been leading to this, it feels like the early stages of my embarkation along this route. It's as if I have just been offered the role and have accepted it. 

In reality, no such role exists and it's not a paid job. I am an adventurer in name only, an attribution pasted onto me by a supportive newspaper article and I have wrapped myself in the glory of it. Whether I can make some kind of living from this only time will tell. It's purely down to me and how comfortable I feel about making this happen. I am a humble soul, not one to seek fame or glory. Yet, for the first time in many years I find myself enjoying discovering a sense of identity and pride in these three words:

Nick Ray, Adventurer.