Boats - 1

One of the good things about being old is that one doesn't feel the need to justify sitting in the sun on a sunny day and just remembering. For example, the other day I began to list all the different sorts of boats I had been in, and my list started, logically, I suppose, with what must have been the most primitive, the coracles two friends and I built in the summer of 1962 in which we floated - or, rather, sank - on the River Thames.

Coracles led to the beautiful ngalowas of the East African coast and the memory both of sailing out in them to the reef and also more recently, while on a holiday in Tanzania, of being taken out in one by a young man who allowed me to take control. And thinking of small boats led to others I have enjoyed, like....

....yachts, both in East Africa and on Ardnamurchan, and rowing boats, from dinghies to racing eights, and then....

....to kayaks and the many happy memories I have of paddling the clear but sometimes rather wicked waters off Ardnamurchan.