The Storm

 

Scenes on the Coasts of Sutherland and Ross

Inverness Courier 27 January 1841 Part E

From Helmsdale to Tarbat Ness NLS Maps of Scotland

Beach south of Helmsdale looking out to the Moray Firth

“We did not remain long inactive upon the waters. The morning had been brilliantly clear, but the soft fleecy clouds, which seemed to have risen from the ocean, had gradually turned into an inky darkness. The distance hills were soon no longer visible; and within two hours the long glassy heave of the sea was changed into white foaming waves, and we were struggling before the blast under double reefed sails. As evening fell, the sea rose more and more, and our ability to weather the point of Tarbet became soon a matter of dispute. Night closed in, dark and stormy. We could not see three boats length to windward, although each sea, as it burst into white foam, cast abroad a faint phosphorescent gleam around us. The gale now came down in its power, and the boat tore and plunged through the heavy seas like a mad thing. Away we went, with the masts bending, and the sails struggling as if they would have burst from the bolt-ropes, while the sea bubbled up like barm from under the lea-gunwhale. Now the boat would pitch half her keel out of the water, and then descend into it with a plunge that tossed the cold glistening brine high into the air, or sent it in a  white cloud of spray drifting down to leeward”. 

 

The Storm,1890, William McTaggart. National Gallery of Scotland

“We were soon close upon the point and long and vainly we struggled to weather it. We did not lose ground, but we gained none. Many an anxious glance was thrown at the lighthouse as its rays shone steadily and brightly over the troubled waters, but the light kept always to windward. Dark as the night was, we could trace the shore under our lee by the white barrier of surf which encompassed it, and the sullen roar, of which we could hear amid the whistle of the gale, and the breaking of the waves around us”.  

William McTaggart. Sailing Boat on a Stormy Sea

“Most of our luckless fellow-passengers had hardly ever been to sea before they were exposed to its powers. They huddled together amongst packages and luggage in the bottom of the boat, seeking shelter from the cold driving rain, and the showers of brine, which every moment broke over them, as best they might. No word was exchanged, but sometimes, in a momentary lull of the wind, the faint wail of a child would be heard, to be drowned the next moment in the returning thunder of the gale. One solitary lantern, in the stern of the boat, cast a faint glow upon the person of the helmsman, glancing upon the spray-drops which hung upon his glazed hat, and revealing his rough, weather-beaten features as he steadily watched for the roll of the sea, and ever and anon anxiously glanced from the compass before him to the distant beam of the lighthouse”.

To be continued…