Life on the ocean wave

One of the best ways of seeing Scotland is by sailing round it. And if you're going to sail you might as well do it in style says Dominic Roskrow

As rites of passages go, facing the elements by helping sail a tall ship takes some beating, it really does.

Even when the sun is beating down and a carnival atmosphere has kicked in, when the beer has been flowing liberally and you know that you'll be back on dry land in a few short hours, there's no escaping the pure adrenalin surge of standing forward and letting the wind pass through you as the boat cuts through the choppy sea waves and sends spray cascading across the bows.

It's all to do with fronting up to nature at its rawest and most mysterious. And you find out quickly whether you're going to love or hate the experience, and whether your romantic notions of travelling over deep menacing sea water under sail is borne out in practice.

But the whole experience takes on a much deeper hue when you're not merely messing about on the water with friends. When you're in it for real, with days stretching into weeks of living on board ahead of you, and where the waters you're traversing aren't the placid Pacific ones, but the often seething maelstrom off the coast of Scotland, then you're in a different place altogether.

It's an energising, often frightening, totally exhilarating and ultimately very rewarding way to test yourself. More than that, it requires an investment of trust in others, for to successfully keep a monster of a boat sailing in the right direction through challenging tides and climates takes team work and hard work. Certainly it's a long way from floppin...

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• By : Dominic Roskrow
• In : Travel
• Issue : 35
• Page : 22
• Words : 937