Bog Myrtle & Peat

There’s no end to the pleasure of that crossing between Cairnryan and Larne. On a summer’s morning, the harbours are alive with eider ducks and black guillimots, and the sun flares on the Braes of Antrim as it does in the evening towards the Rhinns of Galloway. If it’s calm, you can see porpoises from a mile away or more, and even minke whales trolling north and out towards Malin and Rockall. In a stiff breeze, it’s birds you should be looking for above the great, dark channel; shearwaters riding ahead of the bows, and gurly rows of gannets traipsing back and forth to Ailsa Craig. I’ve sometimes looked up from my book to the sight of arctic skuas hunting around the lighthouse at Corsewall Point, and once a sea eagle towards the fingertip of Kintyre. It pays to stay on your toes, and I’ll usually sit outside if I can.

It’s no distance at all from Scotland to Ireland, and the shapes of points and islets are shaken out around you like snooker balls come to rest after the break. If you plug your ears and ignore the throb of diesel engines, you can imagine how it might have been for the Celts sailing back and forth between ancient common grounds. The water itself seems to conjure up currachs and longboats and the memories of rocks tossed across the sea by the old-time giants. I made one crossing back in fog in the glow of early morning, and we were almost in Scotland before the land broke out before us – the sudden steps towards Ballantrae and a white fringe of waves breaking on the raised beaches and the banks of heather where we used to shoot snipe at Glenapp. And knowing that snipe make less than a morning’s work of crossings like these, the heartswell of delight I felt at returning to Scotland was balanced against the feeling that I might not actually have left.

I’ve sometimes made this trip in storms and the pitch of heavy water to the tune of a dozen car alarms wailing. And like a child, I wait by the windows at the front of the ferry in constant hope of the final and most apocalyptic crash of waves. All too often, the perfect crest arrives when the boat has stooped and can do nothing with it. And it’s just as likely that the hull will smash down into nothing but the sucked-out space where water should have been. But every now and then, I’m thrilled by the perfect coincidence; a maximum momentum of sea-rise and boat-sink. That’s when the whole ferry chimes like a bell; crockery smashes in the commercial driver’s lounge, and hot slicks of coffee wash through the canteen; spray is launched high over the ship’s funnels where it runs and hisses on the hardworking pipes like spit on a greased-out skillet. All my lust for destruction is transacted in these technicolour hypotheticals, and I’m almost stupid enough to believe that they wouldn’t let you sail if it was dangerous.

In a recent storm, the passengers were rapt by high seas and moaning water. Some were sick, but most had clustered around the windows to coo at the clashing spume. I joined them, but away from the smash and glory of the North Channel, a man had chosen to remain on his own in the canteen. Judging by his jacket and the dealer boots which were splayed at ten to two beneath his table, he was a lorry driver – and probably more bored by this crossing than any man alive. The ship heaved and the canteen staff rushed to gather stray plates and mugs which ran like rats into the corners, but he was devoted to the business of eating. He was mopping the beans from his dish with a soda scone, so absorbed by his Ulster fry that nothing could prize him away to the storm or the gannets and whales which lie in the mighty slot between Scotland and Ireland. His telephone was set up on the table before him; he was watching the racing at Dundalk as he carved and ate from his plate. The scum of his cooling tea ran back and forth in tiny, imitation swell; ripples reverberated through a lagoon of ketchup, but the man himself was unmoved.