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I find myself in an Erg...Poets, Philosophers, Madmen & a "Dream of White Horses"An erg (also sand sea or dune sea) is a large, relatively flat area of desert covered with wind-swept sand with little to no vegetation cover.[1] The term takes its name from the Arabic word erg ( 毓乇賯), meaning "dune field". Strictly speaking, an erg is defined to be a desert area that contains more than 125 square kilometers of eolian sand and where sand covers more than 20% of the surface. Smaller areas are known as dune fields. The largest hot desert in the world, the Sahara, is 9,000,000km虏 and contains several ergs



Well I find myself in an Erg...but not to worry because my sturdy landrover provides me with shelter (yes all that epitomises British style ? is placed firmly under my rear), a GPS (Global Positioning System) and if I choose somewhere to eat out of the heat. It wasn't that long ago when we relied on compass or a sunshot to find our way from A to B...but those days are gone. There are those that worry about GPS getting turned off or errors been falsely added, well rest assured my technophobs, a sextant out here with heat shimmer was always 5 to 15% out. As for a compass local anomalies are not meantioned on any map. And in the last 8 years this has never happened.....yet ?



Above is my home for the next 29 days 4 hrs and 22 minutes...yes I am counting, one can only take so much sand without the sound of the sea, the smell of the spray and the tang of the salt on my lips. (not to mention a dram as this place is dry in a number of ways). They say of the desert that any body who spends too much time out here on their own becomes either "poet, a philosopher or a mad man"...hopefully this time limit is beyond my 6 week rotation. But this place does make you think...take today for instance. While scouting a route to an old water well I came across these....


Oyster shells...millions af them, I questioned the the crew geologist who explained in simple poetry (he has been here 4 weeks) that 800,000 years or so ago in the Eocene period this place was an inland sea...The plot thickens methinks, so here once upon a time there was the smell of salt, the tang of the sea breeze and the soft ripples of a shallow sea. Being a smarty pants I said 'so this is where the oil comes from'...NO (with postical retort), the oil deposits are 12000' down and in were formed in another shallow sea that was once part of Pangea ? seems "this place was a supercontinent that included all the landmasses of the earth before the Triassic Period and that broke up into Laurasia and Gondwana". He also added that at the time this ancient landmass was somewhere near the south pole. I went to the canteen for a strong cup of tea and left the Rock Doctor to his philsophising...



I am counting the days...29 days 3 hrs and 8 minutes...

I am counting the days because: when I sleep I hear the ocean and I dream of white horses...when I am awake...I walk on ancient sea beds...and the madness creeps closer, the madness that makes me pack my bags a day early, do anything not to get stopped or delayed on the way home...the madness that drives me through terminal 1 at Heathrow and on up to Glasgow...the madness that drives me down onto the rocks to watch an Atlantic storm within 20 minutes of stepping off the plane on Tiree


And then I get home & I stop, I hold my family close, I take my watch off...light the fire...and pour myself a dram...I then put my warmest coat on and walk down to the Beach at Balevullin or Cornaigmore & I sit, and watch...I watch the sand on the beach shifting, the muscles and limpets on the rocks, the waves pounding in from the west...



I look across to Coll, Eigg, Muck, Rum, Canna, Skye the Outer Isles...and decide where to sail tomorrow...



Maybe Gondwana...?