Treasured Islands

You may have heard of this guy called Robert Louis Stevenson. He  was a Scottish bloke who liked to write, and he was pretty darn good at it.  He spent some time around the very island I'm currently living on. (Which is the Isle of Mull in case you're wondering. Sidenote: I learned the hard way that I've been pronouncing "Mull"  wrong for a long while. I was wondering why when I told people when I was traveling around Scotland where I was living for the summer they would look slightly confused and then about 2 minutes later would ask me if I had heard of Mull; and then I would be confused and slightly affronted. I was later informed by my Camas friends that indeed I have been pronouncing "Mull" like "Maaall" instead of "mUUUll" - or "mauw" as some Glaswegians have recently informed me.  I'm still pretty sure I'm not pronouncing it entirely correctly, but at least now I am aware of my "confusing" accent. BAH! That’s a joke. MY accent is confusing. Seriously? Man, I take back what I said earlier about understanding 40% of what Glaswegians say to me; it's more like 20% actual comprehension, 15% assumption and 75% nothing. Sidenote to the sidenote: I don't mean to specifically pick on the Glaswegians- who are by the way folk from Glasgow-  because this could apply to many a Scotsman, but the Glasgow people are just a notch above the rest. But I digress.) So, Mull has been an inspiration inevitably for his stories. "Kidnapped" in particular as the hero of the story is washed up on Erraid. (which is a tidal island off Mull) And being here it is obvious why Stevenson was inspired to write adventure stories. Everything about this place just screams adventure. It's fantastic!

The other day for our evening reflection I read a chapter out of Kidnapped as bedtime story to the group. It was a great chapter where the hero is shipwrecked on Erraid and spends a few miserable days stranded on the island before he learns that Erraid is merely a tidal island and thus could be escaped from when the tide was low.

"A sea-bred boy would not have stayed a day on Earraid; which is only what they call a tidal islet, and except in the bottom of the neaps, can be entered and left twice in every twenty-four hours, either dry-shod, or at the most by wading. Even I, who had the tide going out and in before me in the bay, and even watched for the ebbs, the better to get my shellfish—even I (I say) if I had sat down to think, instead of raging at my fate, must have soon guessed the secret, and got free. It was no wonder the fishers had not understood me. The wonder was rather that they had ever guessed my pitiful illusion, and taken the trouble to come back. I had starved with cold and hunger on that island for close upon one hundred hours. But for the fishers, I might have left my bones there, in pure folly. And even as it was, I had paid for it pretty dear, not only in past sufferings, but in my present case; being clothed like a beggar-man, scarce able to walk, and in great pain of my sore throat."

 Great stuff that book!