Days 5–6: Leverburgh (Harris) → St Kilda (overnight) → Lochmaddy

By Paul Bryers; May 27, 2026

Our crossing from Harris to St Kilda – roughly eight hours – was blessed with beautiful weather and cursed with rough seas, at least for a boat our size (about 8 feet waves at 12 sec intervals).

We fared reasonably well, though some guests and a crew member spent the day contemplating their tummies. Solidarity to the fallen.

Our arrival at St Kilda was spectacular. Blue skies, deep blue seas, the islands rising in a hazy blue silhouette as though the whole archipelago had been painted by someone who’d been at the watercolours since breakfast.

We could see Hirta – the big one – ….

….along with Boreray and its great spear of a stac, Stac an Armin.

Soay sulked behind Hirta, doing its best to be overlooked.

Hirta, close up, was magnificent. Steep undulating hills against the blue sky, the village speckled like ground pepper across the lower slopes.

After high tea on deck, …..

…we headed ashore in the Zodiac, where the Warden greeted us. Other than the Warden, two National Trust for Scotland volunteers, and a couple of QinetiQ staff manning the radar installation, the islands are now deserted. Famine, hardship, and the sheer relentlessness of the place saw the last 36 islanders evacuated to the mainland on 29 August 1930, after they petitioned the government for removal. Hard to blame them. Beautiful as it is, you wouldn’t want to overwinter here with a bad cough.

The Warden pointed out her own house and that of the current volunteer, Miriam – whose father (a MacDonald) was born and buried on Hirta. Miriam lives in London and comes back to volunteer for about two months a year. Some pilgrimages are quieter than others.

As the Warden talked, the adult Soay sheep – who badly needed a stylist, a comb, and possibly counselling – nipped at the sparse grass while their new lambs skittered about with the odd improbable leap. Soay sheep look perpetually as if they’ve just woken up in a hedge and aren’t entirely sure how they got there.

Down by the jetty stood the old schoolhouse….

the church, ……

and the Factor’s house – ….

….the Factor being the man who ran the village on behalf of the Laird, which is a polite way of saying he collected the rent and kept the peace, in roughly that order.

The small blackhouses were instantly striking on the lower slopes, their quasi-round storage cleits scattered around, above, and frankly everywhere – some perched right up on the ridgelines. Quite the trek for a snack. Lovely view while you ate it, mind.

I chose to walk up to The Gap to get the high view back down over the village and bay, and out across the cliffs to Boreray.

It was, to use the technical term, a schlep.

First came the ruined and partly-restored blackhouses with their attendant cleits. The cottages were perfectly sited to look out into the bay – some renovated by the National Trust as volunteer accommodation, others left as eloquent ruins. Now and again, out of the corner of the eye, you’d catch a shadow moving. A sheep? Probably a sheep. Almost certainly a sheep. And yet — there’s a presence about the place. St Kilda doesn’t quite let go of its people, or its people of it.

Each family once had their own cleits, used to store everything they could lay hands on – seabirds, fish, and whatever vegetable matter the island grudgingly produced. Now they lie empty, or are quietly squatted by sheep and birds who’ve found themselves rather nice listed properties at zero rent.

The cemetery was walled-in. Most of the stones were unreadable. It was serene in a way that only properly old graveyards manage – the kind of quiet that feels companionable rather than empty.

Past the cemetery, the land flattened into richer pasture, with the old stone holding pens still standing after centuries of Atlantic weather. Stubborn things.

Then – more schlep. The slope steepened and turned boggy, the going slippery and sucking. Worth every squelching step.

From The Gap, the view back over the village was genuinely sublime – the dark blackhouses speckled like ink on the green sea of grass, set against the real blue sea of the Atlantic. The drystone holding pens, seen from above, traced patterns across the landscape like some ancient piece of land-art.

The sea-cliffs were alive with birds – gulls and fulmars, mostly, I think. Swoop, dive, climb. Swoop, dive, climb. Hypnotic.

The Great Skuas were initially very photogenic. I had been warned to keep to the right, as the Skuas were nesting to the left. The Skuas had not been briefed on this arrangement and proceeded to launch a full-on frontal assault. It made for a couple of excellent photos. I came away without a head wound, which on a St Kilda skua-day counts as a personal triumph.

We woke the next morning to the small horror of a Ponant cruise ship anchored close by – an all gleaming, floating buffet. We scrambled ashore early to get a head start on the disembarking hordes.

I went straight for the cannon and took aim….bang!

I took a short walk over to the other side of Hirta for a different perspective of the bay and a visit to the bird cliffs. Spectacular. Properly, genuinely spectacular.

Just before lunch we boarded Gemini and started back to the Outer Hebrides. Lumpy but a much improved forecast – our goal is to anchor overnight at Lochmaddy on North Uist.

The trip back gave us great weather despite the swell, and we were treated to a pod of bottlenose dolphins surfing our bow. Honestly, if you have to be bounced about in a converted lifeboat, this is the way to do it.

The waters between Harris and Berneray and North Uist were quite tranquil with the odd seal. We passed the Loch Portain car ferry at Leverburgh.

Tomorrow’s itinerary has yet to be determined as the weather is on a 15 min cycle – heavy wash with light rinse….we hope south towards Barra.

Days 1–4: Oban to Leverburgh, Isle of Harris: May 22-25, 2026

By Paul Bryers; May 26, 2026

We embarked Friday on the Gemini from Dunstaffnage Marina – a sunny afternoon with pleasant breezes and the air of misplaced optimism that always precedes a Hebridean cruise. The Gemini, for the uninitiated, is a converted lifeboat. So no matter how things go, we are technically already in a lifeboat. Reassuring, if you squint.

My fellow guests – Janet, Ann, Claire, Vivien, Kim and Dave – as well as Captain Mark, Deck Hand Emily and Chef Jemima – have been my world for four days now, with six more to go. So far, so excellent.

First things first: the crew are magnificent, and we are not an easy crowd. Oh no.

Captain Mark – the poor man is peppered with questions from dawn till dusk (mostly by me), which he answers wisely and frugally, like a Highland oracle with a quota.

Deck Hand Emily – sees to our every whim and delights us with theatrical wet landings from the Zodiac. Always wet. Always.

Chef Jemima – how she conjures this much excellent food out of that postage-stamp galley is a culinary miracle. Variety, quality, and not a sad sandwich in sight. A baker extraordinaire….

The guests? All wonderful. At various milestones in life’s journey. Let us leave it there.

Now – to the cruise proper.

My cabin is spartan but adequate. I’m berthed between the anchor and the ocean, which makes for an interesting nocturnal symphony every time we drop the hook. Think industrial cathedral. Think being inside a giant’s xylophone. The toilet flush comes with very clear directions….

After leaving the marina we sailed past Oban, then Lismore Lighthouse and Duart Castle. Lismore is one of Robert Stevenson’s many lighthouses in these waters – the man was prolific in ways the rest of us can only envy.

St Columba’s Church on Morvern came next…..

…..before we slipped into the beautiful and tranquil Loch na Droma Buidhe — “Loch Drambuie” to its friends – for the night. A genuinely special spot. A golden eagle put in an appearance, and at least one enormous white-tailed eagle came surfing low over the water to pluck a hapless fish for tea.

The next morning we were off, with an altered schedule courtesy of the weather. Rather than Rum and Canna, we’d head up past Eigg and on towards Skye. En route we passed the MV Glen Sannox — yes! Still above water! A small national achievement.

Eigg’s cliffs were spectacular, and the bird life around the boat was chaos incarnate — majestic dives, the occasional kamikaze, much shrieking.

Anchor for the night was Eilean Oronsay – one of approximately 100 Oronsays splattered up and down the west coast, presumably flung there by St Columba in a fit of naming exhaustion.

We popped into the Eilean Iarmain Hotel for a drink. Lo and behold! There was Helen Robertson with an exhibition – I’d bought a painting from her a few years back at the Glasgow Gallery. The Highlands are small in the way Scotland is small: everyone you’ve ever met is just one whisky away.

The following day’s rearranged itinerary included a stop at Eilean Donan Castle – the quintessential Scottish castle, the one on every shortbread tin — and then north to Portree to anchor for the night.

Lovely to go under the Skye Bridge….

Well. Can. I. Say. Wet. Dog?

The short Zodiac crossing from Gemini to Portree was less a transfer than a baptism. The water breaching the bow was – to use a technical seafaring term – bombastic. We arrived in Portree resembling a small tragedy of soaked (and smelly) spaniels, made directly for the nearest pub, and retreated to the boat early to drip with dignity.

So yes. Challenging so far.

However.

As we left Portree and headed north, the weather grudgingly relented. The seas stayed lively but the skies turned, and soon enough we were domed by actual blue. Blue!

Just saw the tail end of The Storr as the fog lifted.

We made a short landing at Staffa Island (no, not that Staffa) and found the Jurassic dinosaur footprints. Hmmm. They were… there. In a manner of speaking. I’ll leave it at that.

Claire and I met the most extraordinary couple on the pier, fussing about with a Ryland dinghy and an electric motor. Off to catch pollock, apparently. She was a pink, comfortably proportioned queen of the seas; he was wafer-thin and irrepressibly jolly. The motor whirred briefly, then died, then they vanished altogether. Most peculiar. I hope the pollock were merciful.

Back on the Gemini we had lunch.

Most impressive was the Quaraing that rise to from our mooring. Beautiful colors and hues of this magnificent rock formation.

Later we motored across to Harris — bouncy, to put it mildly — and picked up a mooring for the night. Some locals came out to have a good laugh at us, and we slowly realised that either my camera had stopped focusing or something was otherwise amiss. Reader, it was the latter. But that’s a story for another entry.

Tomorrow: St Kilda. Nine hours, big waves, big winds. But we are hardy!

By Paul Bryers; May 14, 2026

My new ride, Dr Z, handled the windy roads beautifully – up Loch Lomond, across to Crianlarich, through the brooding majesty of Glencoe and on to Kyle of Lochalsh. The man and his machine, in perfect harmony. Mostly.

I spent the night in a wee cosy bothy near Eilean Donan Castle – modern, snug, and mercifully midge-free.

In the morning, I trundled a few miles to Kyle Pier to board the last seagoing paddle steamer on Earth, the magnificent PS Waverley.

Overall, the weather was windy, cool, with the odd shower spitting down out of spite. Perfect Scottish cruising weather, in other words.

Under the Skye Bridge we slipped, then roughly north past the Red Cuillins – smooth-shouldered hills with a genuinely reddish hue, looking rather sheepish next to their darker cousins to come.

Threading east of Scalpay and west of Raasay, we approached Portree on a very tight heading. Alas, it was not to be. We bottled it at the last moment – too windy to dock – and waved cheerfully at the abandoned souls on the pier as we sailed merrily off without them. These things happen. To them, mostly.

Anchored just outside Portree sat the MV Hebridean Princess, formerly CalMac’s MV Columba and which once ferried the young Bryers clan from Oban to Coll in the 60s and 70s. A small, salty nod from the past.

Then the cliffs got interesting. As we neared The Storr, the Old Man himself put on quite a show — winking in and out of existence through the shifting light, a great phallic spire thrusting up through the rocky crust, slowly being humbled by the elements. Dr Z, incidentally, is finished in Storr Green, which prompted a moment of quiet reflection on the fact that my car’s color looks absolutely nothing like the Old Man. Probably for the best.

Lealt Falls and Kilt Rock followed in quick succession – the latter genuinely surreal, its waterfall snatched up by the wind and flung skywards in a fine misty rebellion against gravity.

Then the otherworldly Quiraing hove into view. Splendid is the only word. Splendid and slightly unreal, like a landscape that got lost on its way to a fantasy novel.

Past Waternish Lighthouse, we called into Uig and collected a couple of passengers who’d had the wit to drive over from Portree. Well played, those two.

After Neist Point Lighthouse we struck out across open water, past Canna, Rum, Eigg and Muck – the Small Isles laid out like a tasting menu. A white yacht glided northeast in the sunlight, with the MV Glen Sannox brooding on the horizon behind it (still afloat, against the odds).

Then the Black Cuillins. Dark, jagged, tops swallowed by Mordor clouds — the geological equivalent of someone refusing to make eye contact.

The Silver Sands of Morar glimmered faintly in the distance, and finally we threaded the Narrows between Glenelg and Kylerhea, with the tide doing most of the steering. Thirty-nine minutes later, we were back in Kyle.

A cold but glorious thirteen hours aboard the grand old PS Waverley.

At Sea -> St Kitts/Nevis -> Guadeloupe -> Martinique -> Dominica -> St Lucia -> Barbados – fly -> Miami/Fort Lauderdale

Dearest Reader,

And so it falls to your humble correspondent to conclude this account of the second and final week aboard the very elegant Seabourn Ovation – that most gracious vessel, whose decks have witnessed both civilised splendour and the occasional lapse in manners too conspicuous to go unremarked.

We again suffered some rough seas and a spot of rain. A hardy son of Scotland, I assure you, found neither cumbersome in the slightest.

Day at Sea

One must confess to a rather prolonged communion with one’s pillows in the morning; a long lie of the most restorative variety, followed by a leisurely half-day at the pool, which is, after all, precisely what the gods of leisure intended. Yet even paradise has its thorns, and aboard the Ovation, those thorns arrive in the form of the “Towel People”.

It has come to this correspondent’s attention – and indeed it would be impossible that it should not – that certain guests of the Ovation are in possession of a most common habit: they dispatch their towels to claim sun loungers at what one can only imagine to be five o’clock in the morning, yet they themselves do not appear until precisely four minutes past four in the afternoon, drawn forth by the last desperate rays of the Caribbean sun. The loungers languish. The towels reign supreme. Society is horrified. Such bad and common behavior.

The evening, one is pleased to report, offered full redemption. After cocktails of the customary excellence, the night was surrendered to Sushi, where your correspondent partook of his usual Blue Sake – that celestial elixir – while Carla and June, those two most entertaining of companions, were in quite extraordinary form. One cannot ask for more.

St Kitts & Nevis

Now here, Dear Reader, is where this chronicle takes a turn of the most dramatic variety – for what was planned was nothing short of magnificent, and what was delivered was… different, though in the end no less magnificent, which speaks entirely to the genius of the captain and crew.

The plan had been outrageous. 

Decadent.

Perfectly, gloriously, unapologetically excessive. A private beach gathering at Carambola on South Friars Bay – that jewel of St Kitts – to which caviar and lobster were to be ferried by high-speed boat directly from the ship’s kitchens. Let that image settle upon your imagination for a moment, Dear Reader. Lobster. Caviar. Delivered by speedboat. To a Caribbean beach. One had rather been looking forward to it.

Alas, Neptune in his infinite wisdom and the seas had their own opinions, and our tenders could not be safely dispatched ashore. One paused. One reconsidered. And then one reconvened – with considerable dignity – around the ship’s pool, where the very same feast was laid out with such impeccable presentation that several guests reportedly forgot they had not, in fact, reached the beach at all.

The crew, it must be stated plainly, executed the entire affair with a professionalism that this correspondent found deeply moving. They are to be praised in the highest terms. A small number of guests, it is understood, were rather less forgiving of Neptune’s intervention. To them, one can only suggest a restorative Blue Sake and a quiet word with themselves.

Guadeloupe

Guadeloupe is shaped, as every well-educated person of good breeding is perfectly aware, like a butterfly, its two wings divided by the Rivière Salée. We were deposited at Pointe-à-Pitre, the island’s commercial capital, which presents itself with a charming and somewhat bewildering mixture of French grandeur and tropical insouciance, as though Paris had been transplanted to the tropics and had decided, on reflection, to slow down considerably and have another pastry.

Your correspondent took a most agreeable turn about the town. The market at La Darse, which sprawls along the waterfront with magnificent disorder, offered pyramids of spices in colours so vivid they seemed almost improper, and some wee: turmeric bright as scandal, scarlet piment antillais that one was firmly advised not to touch without due preparation. One touched one. One was adequately warned. One failed.

A small observation for those who follow: the French of Guadeloupe consider a bonjour not merely a greeting but a moral position. To enter a shop without one is, apparently, to have committed a social transgression of considerable gravity. The French. Your correspondent, being a man of impeccable manners, bonjour-ed with such enthusiasm that the proprietress of a patisserie awarded him an extra madeleine entirely unbidden. Moral: always lead with the bonjour. Indeed!

Coffee was taken at a terrace café in the shade of an old Creole building whose shutters had long since decided their own angle and stuck with it. The tarte aux coco that accompanied it was, and this is not hyperbole, precisely the sort of thing one should encounter at least once before departing this mortal coil. Simple, buttery, fragrant with sharp vanilla. One ate two. Society need not know.

Martinique, again

If Guadeloupe is a butterfly, then Martinique is a crown jewel – and it knows it perfectly well. The French have been here since the seventeenth century and have arranged matters, as they invariably do, to their own maximum satisfaction. The result is an island of quite extraordinary beauty that smells faintly of rum and ambition in equal measure.

We began, as all persons of cultural curiosity must, at the Musée de la Pagerie, the birthplace of one Marie Josèphe Rose Tascher de la Pagerie, who grew up on this very Martinican sugar estate before reinventing herself entirely as the Empress Joséphine, consort to Napoleon Bonaparte. Yes! I know! Who knew!

The estate is now a small and rather affecting museum, the childhood home reduced to its stone foundations by a hurricane in 1766, the kitchen building alone surviving.

One stood in it and reflected, as one must, on the extraordinary improbability of destiny: that a Creole girl from these tropical ruins should end up sharing a throne, if not ultimately a bed, with the most consequential General of the age. Short, but still a General.

Napoleon, history records, eventually had opinions about her inability to provide an heir. One suspects Joséphine had equally strong opinions about shorty Napoleon, which she was too dignified to commit to the historical record.

It is noted by historians that Martinique, despite producing its most famous daughter in Joséphine, erected her statue in Fort-de-France only to have it twice decapitated by those who considered her complicit in Napoleon’s restoration of slavery. The head has not been replaced. The statue remains, headless, as a conversation one imagines neither party particularly enjoys. History, Dear Reader, is rarely tidy.

In the afternoon, the party repaired to the Habitation Clément in Le François, a rum estate of breathtaking elegance, its great house surrounded by tropical gardens and trees of the sort that make one question why one lives anywhere else.

The estate is currently exhibiting art, including artifacts by one of my favorite blown glass artists – Chihuly

Other art was – notable ……

The Clément family have been producing rhum agricole here since 1887, and unlike the molasses-based rums of lesser imagination, their spirit is distilled directly from fresh-pressed sugarcane juice, the difference being as evident to the initiated palate as the difference between a duchess and her less accomplished cousin. You know to whom I refer, of course.

The tasting that followed was conducted with the seriousness it deserved. Each expression was presented with its own character…

Dominica

Now we arrive at Dominica, which one must immediately distinguish from the Dominican Republic, a confusion that the island’s citizens bear with the weary patience of those who have been correcting this error for generations. Dominica – Dom-in-EE-ka, if you please is the Nature Isle of the Caribbean: volcanic, dramatic, extravagantly green, and refreshingly unbothered by the kind of resort development that has smoothed the personality from so many of her neighbours.

One came here not to recline, but to venture forth. And venture forth one did, in the most literal sense, directly into the island’s extraordinary waterfalls (#365) and river systems (#12) for a white water tubing expedition of entirely unexpected exhilaration.

One is lowered into the current on an inflated ring and simply… surrendered to Dominica’s will. The river, fed by those volcanic mountains and their extravagant rainfall, courses through gorges of dripping fern and overhanging forest, the water cool and startlingly clear, the light arriving in shafts through the canopy above. It is, Dear Reader, the sort of experience that makes one feel rather more alive than one had felt that morning, which was the point entirely. One’s bum is a bit sore at the end due to the many river boulders, but still intact.

Dominica receives, on average, more rainfall than almost any other island in the Caribbean – a fact its forests make abundantly clear. Everything is improbably, almost aggressively green.

One half-expects creatures from a more fantastical era to emerge from the undergrowth. The island is home to the Sisserou parrot, found nowhere else on earth, which one did not see but heard at some distance, presumably judging us.

A forest walk completed the afternoon – paths beneath a ceiling of giant tree ferns and mahogany, the air thick with moisture and the sound of waterfalls everywhere, invisible streams conducting their own private conversations through the roots. A naturalist’s paradise. A Scotsman’s idea of an agreeable Thursday.

St Lucia

Oh, St Lucia! She presents herself, from the sea, as one of the Caribbean’s great theatrical gestures: the twin volcanic spires of the Pitons rising from the water at Soufrière like two acts of geological drama staged purely for the visitor’s appreciation. Castries, our port of call, is the more commercial proposition – bustling, colourful, and alive with the particular energy of a place that has long understood itself to be beautiful and is entirely comfortable with the attention this attracts.

The town has the warm, pleasantly chaotic character of a proper working Caribbean capital: the market at Castries overflowing with hot sauces of varying degrees of optimism, straw hats, and the particular energy of vendors who have identified the cruise passenger as a species requiring gentle but persistent assistance with their purchasing decisions. Your correspondent emerged with provisions he had not planned to acquire and was, upon reflection, not displeased about it.

St Lucia smells of sweet nutmeg and sea air and whatever is being grilled just around the next corner. The people are possessed of an openness that one finds immediately disarming. The island has been French and British no fewer than fourteen times collectively – a fact that has produced a Creole culture of quite remarkable richness, the French patois persisting in the cadence of speech even as English holds official sway. One felt, walking those streets, that St Lucia has simply observed the centuries and decided to make the best of all of them.

Barbados & Departure

Every journey, Dear Reader, must conclude – and the universe, apparently committed to dramatic irony as a structuring principle, had arranged for ours to conclude through the port of Bridgetown, Barbados, which your correspondent will describe only as follows: the less said, the more dignity is preserved. The port was – one reaches for the word – uninspiring. The transfer to the airport was an experience that one endured rather than enjoyed and shall not revisit in these pages. Some things are best released, like a not-quite-ripe mango, into the warm Caribbean air.

The flight home with American Airlines was, by sharp and welcome contrast, a triumph of efficiency. One was airborne, comfortable, and reunited with a drink and steak of reasonable quality before one had fully processed the relief of having left the port behind. The journey onward to Fort Lauderdale by Uber concluded matters in the civilised manner that the port had so conspicuously failed to provide.

· · ✦ · ·

And so, Dear Reader, the Seabourn Ovation and her impeccable crew deposit us, two weeks wiser, considerably better fed, and with a liver that has bravely served above and beyond the call of duty, back upon the shores of the ordinary world.

The Towel People shall continue their dawn occupations.

Carla and June shall be magnificent somewhere.

The Blue Sake shall wait.

Until the next voyage, one remains -as always – your devoted correspondent,
thoroughly entertained, and in the very best of health.

And speaking of the next voyage, Dearest Reader, your narrator will not be me. It will be one of my other, courser, personalities.

In honesty, he is welcome to describe the journey, as 10 days in the Outer Hebrides and St Kilda in a converted lifeboat with 7 other guests, a captain and a chef is not for this correspondent!

St Maarten · BVI · St Kitts & Nevis · At Sea · Martinique · Bequia · Mustique · St Vincent & The Grenadines · Grenada · Barbados

Dearest Reader,

 A Troubled Start

The first week of this odyssey is over, and I enter the second with renewed vigour.

During that first week, I must admit to having suffered from the vapors and memories that were not convivial to good times. In addition, the fact that I leave the US permanently in less than a month has hit home rather harder than anticipated. It’s the closure of an era that has been both brilliant and terrible. But, hopefully, closed it will stay.

As this second week begins, the vapors have settled and those memories are back, mostly, where they belong.

So now I can recount my escapades in the style of Bridgerton. Why? Because I love Mrs. Julie Andrews.

On the Matter of Weather

The wind has been, in a word, persistent. The British contingent aboard – dominant in number, hailing predominantly from Scotland and, mysteriously, Airdrie – responded to the bracing trade winds with the quiet satisfaction of people who have been training for exactly this their entire lives. There has also been some rain. We considered it refreshing.

The British Virgin Islands: A Study in Scenic Futility

The British Virgin Islands appeared on the horizon precisely as advertised — luminous, turquoise, the very archetype of Caribbean splendour. The tenders were readied. And then the wind made its position abundantly clear.

We could not tender. The sea state had opinions.

The BVI remained exactly where they were – visible, tantalising, and entirely inaccessible. We watched them from the ship. They were beautiful. We went to lunch.

St Kitts & Nevis: The Caviar I Did Not Eat (Yet)

St Kitts and Nevis offers, I am reliably informed, a caviar and lobster experience of considerable local renown. Reader, I did not go. This was not negligence. This was due to the vapors, etc. We return in a few days’ time, and I intend to address the caviar situation then, at leisure, with the serene superiority of a man who has already done the reconnaissance.

St Pierre, Martinique: Magnificently, Gloriously Decrepit

We tendered ashore at St Pierre, a town obliterated in 1902 by the eruption of Mount Pelée and rebuilding ever since, apparently without undue haste. It is a French island, after all.

The result is crumbling colonial architecture in various states of dignified decay, cats occupying doorsteps as though they own them (they do), and the atmosphere of a place that has made its peace with the fact that the volcano is still, technically, there.

What it does have, and I cannot stress this enough, is coffee. Proper French coffee, with a pastry of considerable buttery consequence.

Bequia & Mustique: The Rich, The Famous, and Basil’s Bar

Bequia. We tendered into Port Elizabeth, which is the kind of small Caribbean harbour that makes one immediately want to own a sailboat, a linen shirt, and significantly fewer responsibilities. From there, a catamaran carried us across to Mustique, a private island of such conspicuous exclusivity that the air itself seems to carry a faint whiff of old money and sun cream.

And no smell of Epstein files whatsoever.

A beach stroll followed, as one does when one has arrived on an island frequented by people whose names appear in gossip columns and on superyacht registries. The weather was, let us say, mixed, which is a diplomatic way of saying it was a bit wet, but one does not permit Caribbean hi drizzle to dampen one’s sense of occasion on Mustique. One simply carries on.

Lunch was at Basil’s Bar. Basil’s Bar is, in the great tradition of legendary Caribbean establishments, the sort of place where you sit down expecting a sandwich and emerge three hours later having spoken to people you could not have anticipated meeting, eaten considerably better than you planned, and felt, briefly, as though life is very good indeed. The rich and the famous were apparently present, though I confess I did not recognise them.

That evening, back aboard, dinner at Sushi. I must pause here to properly acknowledge Carla and June – two individuals of such warmth, skill, and unerring instinct for what a person actually needs to eat that I can only report I am now slightly larger than I was in Sint Maarten. They made me fat. I am grateful. I would do it again without hesitation.

Grenada: An Early Start, a Bus, and the Reward of Great Heights

Grenada demanded an early start, which I managed with the grim, determined civility of a man who knows that what awaits is worth it – a five hour guided tour of the best views and herb and spice gardens.

The bus delivered us first to Fort George (not the one near Inverness!) for views….

…..and then onto Laura’s Herb & Spice Garden. We tasted and smelled our way through cocoa, tarragon, bay, anise, supremely hot baby peppers, mango, lemon grass, ginger root, etc. as well as the marvelous aromas were beautiful plants and flowers. A truly enchanting experience. I see a wee herb and spice garden in Glasgow…

We were then delivered to a fresh water lake in a volcano’s caldera …..

….that then led to the beginning of a short hike in the rain forest. The hike delivered me (but no one else in the group) – breathless, slightly dishevelled, and entirely vindicated – to views of the sort that make one forget one ever complained about the early alarm. Thankfully, given my history of bites from monkeys (and dogs), the Mona Monkeys did not appear. Little brutes.

Grenada is green, dramatic, and rather magnificent. It rewards effort. One departs feeling that one has earned the view, which is the best kind of view there is.

One further pleasure deserves its proper mention: dinner in The Restaurant with Kieran and Moyra – an Irish and English coupling of considerable charm, excellent conversation, and the kind of sharp, generous humour that makes three hours disappear in what feels like twenty minutes. The sort of people you hope to find on a ship and usually don’t. I found them. The evening was a delight. I miss them already.

Barbados: New Arrivals, Same Vintage

We are now docked in Barbados.

We are sharing the docks with a Star Clipper, P&O’s Arvia, Viking’s Viking Sea and Emerald’s Sakara- and some dirty container and tug boats.

Oh, and I just noticed that Noble. Caledonia’s Hebridean Sky is tucked to the stern of Arvia; I saw her in Martinique.

The majority of our fellow Seabourn passengers – the Scots, the Airdrie contingent, Tom and Robin from North Carolina, Kieran and Moyra and others – the assembled magnificent and opinionated – are disembarking. The ship, like a very elegant theatre, turns over its audience.

The newer guests are already boarding. I have observed them from the deck with the quiet authority of a man who has been here a week and therefore knows everything. They are, I can confirm, equally old. Different faces. Same vintage. The average age of this vessel remains, as it should, robustly seasoned.

We sail on into our second week.

• Miami -> Sint Maarten -> BVI

Dearest Reader:

Once upon a time, long, long ago, well 24 hrs actually, the world as I knew it ceased to exist. That is when I embarked onto Seabourn’s Ovation.

But first, practicalities, the suite is wonderful – so big! Who knew?! Like the first time you travel Business – you can’t go back to Cattle. So, bye to Celebrity.

So, now the story….

Let’s be clear: I did not travel to Sint Maarten. I survived my way there.

It started with a 30-minute, 100mph Uber blur from Fort Lauderdale to Miami — a journey so brief and so violent it barely qualified as transportation and more as being fired from a cannon in the general direction of an airport. I arrived at the gate dishevelled and slightly feral.

Then: Cattle Class. Two hours and seventeen minutes of what the aviation industry optimistically calls seating. My companions were generous souls who breathed with the enthusiasm of people who had only recently discovered oxygen and were not about to take it for granted. I disembarked technically alive but spiritually rearranged. Never again – I’ve already upgraded myself to First for my return to MIA.

Sint Maarten! Beautiful, sun-drenched, and — this is the part nobody mentions in the brochures — possessed of ports. Plural. And I, with my usual quiet confidence and superiority of someone who absolutely should have read the instructions, went to the wrong one first. An hour later — wiser, sweatier, and considerably more Caribbean in my outlook — I arrived the right one.

My luggage, however, had other plans. Six hours passed. Six full hours during which I was in my all black outfit and in which my bag was presumably having a better trip than I was – it certainly looked a bit rough when it finally arrived. At around the four our mark, the situation had escalated to the point where Seabourn — Seabourn — rang to ask if I had my luggage – three times over the next 2 hours. They were touching calls. Very caring. The answer was no. We moved on.

But here is where the story pivots — sharply and gloriously — because aboard this ship, Americans were thin on the ground. Save for Tom and Robin from North Carolina, who were an absolute delight and who I shall defend with my life, the passenger manifest read like a phone book from Glasgow and, oddly, Ardrie. Scots. Everywhere. At the bar, in the corridors, on the decks — opinionated, hilarious, magnificently unfiltered Scots, each one a conversational gift wrapped in a fleece.

By the time the bar reached its full, glorious, barely-controlled mania, I had completely forgotten I owned luggage.

Fourteen days of this.

I cannot wait.

Traveling on a small expedition-cruise ship, especially one with the ability to cruise through first-year ice of 2-3 feet, is less like taking a holiday at sea and more like joining a moving field station. The ship is your hotel, your classroom, your wildlife hide and your bridge to places that feel profoundly beyond the everyday.

But an Arctic voyage through the Northwest Passage (NWP) from Greenland to Alaska and an expedition to the Antarctic Peninsula deliver very different versions of that magic: different seas, different horizons, different human stories and different kinds of silence.

The sea: Long swells vs fractured ice roads

In the NWP, the ocean often feels like a mosaic: leads of open water, brash ice, pressure ridges, fog banks and broad, low light. Depending on the year and the route, you may encounter everything from calm, glassy passages to complicated ice conditions that slow the ship’s progress to a careful crawl. The drama can be subtle: navigation decisions, satellite ice charts, the ship nudging into young ice – rather than the “big wave” theatre people associate with ocean travel.

By contrast, the Antarctic Peninsula is frequently about the Southern Ocean first. The approach across the Drake Passage can define the whole tone of the trip. You might get the legendary “Drake Shake” (steep, energetic seas – fun!) or the  “Drake Lake” (calm and boring).

Once you’re among the Peninsula’s island chains and bays, the water can become surprisingly sheltered and mirror-still, just like in NWP but the memory of that crossing is part of the Antarctic initiation.

In short: the Arctic can be a patient negotiation with ice; Antarctica can be a test of your sea legs before it becomes a cathedral of calm.

Landscapes: Inhabited edges vs elemental spectacle

The NWP landscapes feel ancient and lived-in: a vast tundra palette, low-slung hills, ragged coastlines, and mountains that can rise suddenly and sternly, depending on your segment (Baffin Island can look ferocious; other areas feel spacious and soft). The beauty is often in scale and nuance with lichen colors on stone, delicate wildflowers in brief summer, the long amber twilight and the way fog reshapes distance.

Antarctica, meanwhile, is immediate and cinematic. The Antarctic Peninsula is a gallery of jagged peaks, hanging glaciers, ice cliffs, and sculpted bergs that look designed rather than eroded. Even seasoned travelers can go quiet the first time they see a calving face or a bay filled with blue-white ice. It’s less subtle wilderness and more planetary architecture.

People: The human North vs the almost-humanless South

One of the biggest differences is that the Arctic is a homeland. In the NWP you can visit Inuit communities where the culture is contemporary, resilient, and ongoing; not a museum. You can step into a community hall, hear local perspectives on sea ice, food security, housing, language and the lived reality of climate change. That human presence changes how you read the landscape: it becomes a place with names, memories, and responsibilities.

Antarctica has no permanent residents. The people story is historic, scientific and operational: research stations, field camps, ship crews, and the legacy of exploration. The dominant impression is of a continent that belongs, in a sense, to weather, ice and animals. The absence of daily human life creates a particular kind of awe and a particular kind of ethical clarity about leaving no trace.

Wildlife: Apex predators vs overwhelming colonies

Both regions are wildlife capitals, but the cast and the style differ.

In the NWP, wildlife encounters can feel rarer and more electrifying because they’re often solitary: a polar bear on a distant ridge, a polar bear killing a seal on an adjacent iceberg, a walrus swimming, a ringed seal watching from an ice edge, a narwhal surfacing like a myth made real, a gyrfalcon cutting through wind. You’re in polar bear country where safety briefings really matter and shore landings carry a different alertness with armed guards in close proximity. Birdlife can be rich, but the Arctic tends to deliver moments rather than constant spectacle.

Antarctica offers abundance and choreography. The Antarctic Peninsula is famous for penguin colonies like gentoo, chinstrap, Adélie plus skuas, sheathbills, and petrels overhead. Humpbacks and minkes feed in the bays; seals (Weddell, crabeater, leopard) lounge on ice; the air can smell of krill and guano near rookeries. Wildlife feels like the soundtrack of the place: everywhere, noisy, busy, comedic, and somehow still wild.

Weather and light: Variability vs intensity

Arctic weather can be mercurial with fog, drizzle, sudden sun, sharp winds and and the light can be haunting: long sunsets, soft shadows, and a sense of time stretching. Summer warmth can surprise you, but it can also snap back to cold quickly. The Arctic often feels like it’s inviting you in… and reminding you it doesn’t have to.

Antarctica’s weather is more binary and dramatic. When it’s calm, it can be otherworldly: still water, crisp air, and light bouncing off ice from every direction. When it turns, katabatic winds can roar down glaciers and change plans fast. Temperatures on the Peninsula aren’t always as brutally cold as people imagine, but the combination of wind and exposure can make it feel fiercely polar.

Sights and daily rhythm: Cultural visits vs ice-cathedrals

On an NWP expedition, your “sights” might include historic exploration sites, wreck stories, whaling history, and the modern realities of Arctic navigation, along with community visits that bring warmth, humor, and conversation. The ship’s ice capability becomes a tool for access: pushing a little farther, taking a different channel, lingering near a floe edge.

In Antarctica, the sights are often pure form: a corridor of bergs, a black-sand beach with penguins pouring into the sea, a glacier front that sounds like distant thunder. The daily rhythm revolves around zodiacs, landings, and opportunistic wildlife watching—always under strict environmental rules that shape a sense of collective care.

Which feels “bigger”?

The Arctic feels emotionally bigger because it’s both wilderness and home, beauty and biography, environment and culture intertwined.

Antarctica feels visually bigger; more vertical, more stark and more end of the Earth.  

So, which destination is for you?

On a small expedition ship, both are extraordinary—but they are extraordinary in different languages.

If you want the layered story of people and place, a navigational quest through ice-threaded channels, and wildlife encounters that feel like rare gifts, the NWP can be transformative.

If you want overwhelming ice-and-mountain grandeur and a wildlife cast that’s constantly on stage, the Antarctic Peninsula is unbeatable.

 

By Paul Bryers

• Day Itinerary: Drive Dades Valley – Ouarzazate – Ait Ben Haddou – Cross High Atlas – Marrakech
• Accommodation:
• Driver: Said

Driver:
So on this last day of my 14 day private road trip, I highly recommend Said as a driver. His primary focus was always safety, while being courteous, helpful, and punctual. Said was provided via Luxury Tours Morocco (contact MaryAm).

Last Day:
Today, we embarked on the final leg of our stunning journey, from the Dades Valley through Morocco’s cinematic landscapes to the vibrant city of Marrakech.

After a lovely Moon rise (or was it set), …..

….we departed from the dramatic Dades Gorges, winding through the High Atlas Mountains and passing traditional Berber villages.

We stopped in Ouarzazate, the “Gateway to the Desert,” famous for its film studios, especially Atlas Studios, and kasbahs.

Ouarzazate is also globally recognized for its Noor Power Station, a solar power complex and auxiliary diesel fuel system.

At 510 MW, it is the world’s largest concentrated solar power (CSP) plant. The solar tower utilizes thousands of heliostat mirrors to reflect and focus sunlight onto a receiver atop a central tower. Inside the tower, the concentrated solar energy heats molten salt, which is then used to create steam to drive a turbine generator. This process converts light into electricity, and the molten salt storage allows for power generation even after sunset. The plant was completed in four phases and covers an area of over 3,000 hectares (12 sq mi).

Actually, I don’t think it’s a solar complex at all – no, it’s The Eye of Sauron atop Barad-dûr!

Our next stop, Aït Benhaddou, is a historic fortified village (ksar), located along the former caravan route between the Sahara and Marrakech. It is a UNESCO World Heritage site famous for its stunning mud-brick architecture and as a popular filming location for movies like Gladiator and Game of Thrones. I am done with red mud brick buildings in the heat, so I had a coffee and contemplated my return to chilly Glasgow with its red brick/stone buildings. Mmmmmh…

Next up was re-crossing the High Atlas. I love mountains! The best thing is mountains with wee lochs or tarns.

We ascended to Col du Tichka at 2,260 meters (7,400 feet).

Ouanoukrim, towering close by, has two peaks, with the highest, Timzguida, reaching 4,088 meters (13,415 feet), and the second, Ras Ouanoukrim, standing at 4,083 meters (13,396 feet). These peaks are the second and third highest in the Atlas range in Morocco.

And then down and down …..

….and sometimes the road was alarmingly close to the edge but trusty Said was in full control…

….and down to Marrakech and that’s a wrap for this trip.

Sorry it is over but excited to see my new home in Glasgow!

Thanks for following me. I’ll be back posting trips in April 2026….

By Paul Bryers

• Day Itinerary: Drive Erg Chebbi, Sahara – Tingher – Todgha Gorges – Dades Valley
• Accommodation: Ksar Sultan Dades

Today’s journey was characterized by diverse landscapes, transitioning seamlessly from desert serenity to mountain majesty as we traveled from the golden dunes of Erg Chebbi, Sahara to the dramatic landscapes of the Dades Valley, one of Morocco’s most scenic desert-to-mountain routes.

We departed Merzouga after sunrise over the dunes.

The Tafilalet palm groves are the largest oasis in Morocco, representing a vital agricultural and ecological area, renowned for date palm cultivation, and historically significant as the origin of the Alaouite dynasty (current monarchy). This vast area includes fortified villages like Rissani and Erfoud, which I visited a couple of days ago, and is irrigated by underground waters from the Ziz and Gheris rivers.

Next, we visited the Todgha Gorges, a series of limestone river canyons, or wadi, in the eastern part of the High Atlas Mountains, near the town of Tinerhir.

Both the Todgha River and the neighboring Dadès River are responsible for carving out these impressive deep cliff-sided canyons, on their final 40 kilometers (25 mi) through the mountains. The height of the canyon walls can vary, but in some places can reach up to 400 meters (1,312 ft) high.

The cliffs are a favorite among rock climbers, who were evident today. I would have joined them, but I’m on a tight schedule.

After Todgha, we continued through winding roads carved into red canyons until reaching the breathtaking Dades Gorge.

The gorge is known for its “monkey fingers” rock formations and panoramic viewpoints. I’m not sure why they are called monkey fingers – monkey finger tips would be a more accurate description.

Then, it was straight to my accommodations – The Ksar Sultan Dades. This hotel is very elegant with great views.

My room was fine.

And so another day ends. One more full day and that’s a wrap.

By Paul Bryers

• Day Itinerary: Drive Arfoud (Gate to Sahara) to Sahara
• Accommodation: Sandy Tents, Sahara

After departing Afoud, I visited a local town, Rissani, to see a typical, non-touristy Medina and local market.

The guide was, I think, Achmed – nice guy who knew everyone.

I must admit that I didn’t enjoy the experience.

Firstly, because I became possessed by vaporous demons coming out of the open sewer drains while in the dark, dank alleyways – poor guys working on them looked green.

Second, due to the live animals being sold for food … I enjoy my meat like the next carnivore but I don’t need to see the details.

And finally, the pressure to make purchases. I informed my guide, who was fine, that I had had enough early on in the tour, and Said and I left.

The Sahara is often referred to as “The greatest desert” – Aṣ-ṣaḥrā’ al-kubrá in Arabic.

It spans much of North Africa, excluding the fertile region on the Mediterranean Sea coast, the Atlas Mountains of the Maghreb, and the Nile Valley in Egypt and the Sudan.

With an area of 9,200,000 square kilometres (3,600,000 sq mi), it is the largest hot desert in the world and the third-largest desert overall, smaller only than the deserts of Antarctica and the northern Arctic.

The Sahara is a desert primarily due to atmospheric circulation patterns that create a high-pressure zone, but its history has also been shaped by cyclical changes in Earth’s orbit and, more recently, by human activity.

For a long time, the Sahara experienced periods of heavy rainfall and lush vegetation when its location was wetter due to a strengthened monsoon, but the current arid state is due to the persistent high-pressure system over the region, which causes air to descend, dry out, and prevent cloud formation.

The deathstalker scorpion can be 10 cm (3.9 in) long. Its venom contains large amounts of agitoxin and scyllatoxin and is very dangerous; however, a sting from this scorpion rarely kills a healthy adult. I find that comforting (as I check all corners of my tent)…

As we approached the Sahara’s sand dunes, the remaining greenery disappeared apart from some succulents.

As we ventured off-road, the gravel that comprises about 90% of the Sahara…..

…..gave way to the golden sand dunes we see in the movies. The scenery was wonderful and beautiful.

Upon arrival at my Sandy Tents camp, I checked my room, which was very nice with a large panoramic window facing west.

I then took a short siesta after checking for deathstalkers.

At 5:30 pm, I embarked on a camel ride to the dunes to witness the sunset (6:24 pm).

Hassan was my camel lad – a nice guy with a naughty sense of humor, or so I thought, as my Arabic is still very limited after four weeks.

Callum The Camel, was nice enough but quite flatulent. He blamed Hassan, but I’m not so sure…

We set off to catch the last minutes of the sun…

As the sun set, the color of the dunes changed, and there was no sound other than Callum’s occasional flatulence. The experience was beautiful and moving (not the farting, the solitude).

We took some artistic shots.

The sunset got even more beautiful.

Then it was time to wear something yellow and get back on Callum……

….and trek back to the camp under the moon, which was rising over the border with Algeria – easily visible due to a high mountain range.

Dinner at the camp was excellent, although there was far too much food, as usual.

Now it’s time to retire, knowing that the desert is just beyond my uncurtained window…view at midnight…