In short, there was a lot to anticipate, even for one of those "adventurous souls" ,who had already visited some ofthe "far-flung" islands as a roving columnist for the Glasgow Herald twenty years ago and could still recall such random details as: spending several days at the Gaelic College on Skye; posing as a potential buyer of Soay (it was then on sale for £200,000), complete with its feral sheep and tame otters, immortalised by Gavin Maxwell; discovering UK's best Indian curry house in Lerwick, the capital of Shetland, and having solitary breakfast in my Stornoway hotel on a Sunday morning, when the only thing that moved on the whole of the still strictly sabbatarian island were the bubbles in the glass of mineral water in front of me...

I fell in love with the Scottish islands there and then and couldn't wait to rediscover those I had visited already and to 'dare visit' the ones I hadn't.

***

... I wake up from the characteristic ear-grating rattle of an unwinding anchor chain, followed by the suave and ever-so-joyful voice ofDavid Berg, our Swedish Expedition Leader, wishing his fellow 'expeditioners', 'a very good morning'.

It is 6 am, and my first instinct is to switch his voice off as I habitually do at home to my vociferously intrusive alarm clock. But the source of the voice, filling my spacious cabin to the brim, is nowhere to be found and is therefore un-switch-off-able. I then realise then that I am already fully awake and ready for another day of adventures and close encounters with the magnificent Scottish Islands. The question that is bothering me now is whether the Zodiac landing on the island of St. Kilda (or Foula, or Staffa) is going to be 'wet' or 'dry', and that should dictate a 'dress-code' for the day: water-proof pants and rubber boots, stocked up in the ship's 'Mud Room', or ordinary jeans and trainers.

It is day three (or four) of the journey, and I've already had a chance to acquaint myself with Greg Mortimer, the ship.

Built in 2019 and named after a famed Australian mountaineer, she (I mean MV Greg Mortimer) is the first passenger vessel ever to feature the Ulstein X-Bow – an inverted ship bow to ensure that her farthest forward point is not at the top – which increases the fuel efficiency as well stability and safety.In combination with Rolls Royce dynamic stabilisers, this offers unrivalled steadiness, so you feel fewer vibrations due to reduced rocking and pitching – an important feature for me, prone to sea sickness and carrying an impressive supply of travel sickness tablets, most of which – rather ironically - list dizziness and nausea as their common side-effects!

I am proud to report that, despite crossing some of the roughest parts of the North Atlantic, including the notorious Cape Wrath, not monikered so for nothing, I felt the Greg Mortimer's tremors only once, on the very first night of the voyage when we were sailing past the Western Isles...

Alongside the stabilisers, my favourite onboard gadgets were two Jacuzzi baths on the upper deck, right under the radar. Sitting in them (alternately), I kept imagining myself a fulmar or an albatross (at times, even a puffin) whooshing forgetfully above the waves.

*******

MV Greg Mortimer carried 15 Zodiacs – inflatable shuttle boats, made of flexible tubes with pressurised gas, which we could board from the four dedicated sea-level launching platforms to explore the coastline, the grottos and the wildlife from close-by, or to land right on the rugged shore or on a beach. I can testify that even for someone like myself, long past his best athletic form (and shape), jumping into the Zodiacs and out of them was almost as easy as boarding a double-decker bus.Or getting off it.

We(I mean 70 mostly middle-aged 'expeditioners' from the USA, Australia and the UK) were lucky to be served and pampered by 80 (!) members of the highly cosmopolitan crew, with the Russian Captain, Bulgarian Chief Engineer, French Hotel Director, Jamaican Chef, Ukrainian chambermaids, Argentinewaitersetc. etc. To my considerable relief, there was no friction whatsoever between the Russian and Ukrainian crew members, which demonstrated again the sheer purposeless and inanity of the ongoing war.

One of the main – unanticipated! - highlights was taking a close look at one of the world's living wonders - the magnificent Minke Whales in their natural habitat.

In fact, it was not one whale but three, playing joyfully just 20 metres away from our unsinkable Zodiac near the island of St Kilda, casually showing their brownish glistening bulks, then diving again and waving at us with the giant fans of their caudal fins. "Wow! Wow!" all eight passengers on board our Zodiac, including yours truly, were howling in chorus, like a pack of hungry wolves. Having forgotten about our cameras and iPhones, we were watching the amazing creatures knowing we'll remember the scene for as long as we live.

Another memorable ((if not quite wild) animal sighting was that of a ... whole suckling pig, roasted on the sun deck during the traditional Captain's barbecue. It was the second time in my life that I was able to taste that hard-to-come-across Russian delicacy – a tribute to the ship's talented chef who made sure that the food served on board was always fresh, delicious and plentiful.

I was excited to visit - for the first time - the officially remotest British island of Foula (area 4,88 square miles, population 38) which lies on the same latitude as St Petersburg, but has just one road.

The island made history in 2017, when Ordnance Survey mapmakers decided to finally put the island on a separate Custom Made OS Explore 1:7500 scale map (of which I am a proud owner), making it the last properly mapped bit of Britain's territory!

In the main street of Kirkwall, the capital of the Orkneys, I stumbled upon the family home of one of my favourite travel writers of the past – Samuel Laing, Esq (1780–1868), who travelled extensively in Europe, including Norway and northern Germany and published beautiful descriptions of those countries.I had no idea he was actually a native Orcadian.

On the island of St. Kilda, I wandered among the stone remains of an amazing small community, which had existed there – in total obscurity and isolation from the rest of the world – for about 2000 years, until the remaining 30 or so if its members were resettled on mainland Scotland in 1930.

The St Kildans knew nothing about money, but lived off sea-birds, fish, crops and sheep, with all enjoying equal rights. The island had no crime and was ruled by a democratic little 'parliament'. It made me think of Tristan da |Cuhna – a small archipelago in the South Atlantic, with the current population of about 270 and the 'capital' with the alluring name Edinburgh of the Seven Seas. Officially, the most remote community in the world, it was (and still is) a frequent object of my armchair-buccaneer dreams. Until now, I haven't quite lost hope of visiting it one day...

A true adventure, like the 'Wild Scotland' expedition, never fails to open up new horizons.

****

The final point in this cruise came three months after it ended in the shape of a beautifully printed photo album, with detailed description of every single day of the journey and all the bird and animal sightings (except for that of a barbecued suckling pig). Put together by the Expedition team, it allowed me to relive the best moments of that truly unforgettable voyage.

Call it an 'expedition' or a cruise – it was bound to challenge the imagination of the most hardened 'armchair buccaneers'. 

https://www.aexpeditions.co.uk


Vitali was a guest of AE Expeditions, (part of Aurora Expeditions)