I noticed the boy and girl as soon as I got on the boat. They were both about twenty, in love, very together. She had hennaed red hair clipped up in a messy knot, black eyeliner and a nose stud. He wore one of those odd jumpers with a large snowflake pattern on it, and had heavy sideburns like a young George Best. They were kinda cool. On the way back from the island they were missing.
Over azure blue and turquoise seas we voyaged, in the Sound of Iona. And witnessed the great lines of St. Columba's Abbey monumental in an inky blue silhouette. Passing the calcium white sand of North Beach on Iona and heading for the flat black island on the horizon. Fractured, iconic, liquid rock cooled on the edge of a vast Atlantic ocean. Basalt hexagonal columns rising out of the ocean like a modern sculpture, glinting with deep black light. I imagined the boy and girl sitting together on the narrow ledge of the cave. Fingal's laments echoing through the air. Wind whipped notes of Mendelssohn's Hebridean Overture. They watched the evening star appear in the roof arch of the cave, the lines of the great abbey misty in the distance. A special silent night. Planes all over the world had been grounded for them. A night for lovers, alone on their own island.
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A few steps to the water, Sanna Bay, Ardnamurchan, Scotland.
Starry, starry night ....
Photo featured: Looking out from Fingal's Cave, Isle of Staffa, Scotland.
Paintings of Scotland.
