LOBETROTTER

PART ONE

Growing up on the Isle of Barra in the Outer Hebrides, there are only two solid career options – sheep or ships! With my father, grandfather and uncles having all gone to sea, it was fairly easy to see the direction I would head, even though we lived on a croft with about 200 sheep!

I was what might be described as a challenging school pupil, investing more time in my lucrative lobster fishing business and tending the family’s sheep than on my studies. Eventually my father pointed out that fishing could be a difficult business and that having my “ticket” as a merchant mariner would be a sensible backstop to my main ambition of owning the biggest fishing boat on the island.

For the next 13 years I rose through the ranks of the Merchant Navy, travelling around the world on a mixture of general cargo ships and tankers, with time spent with Blue Funnel, Bibby Line, Esso International and Maersk. As a deck officer I quickly found that navigation was my primary area of interest and skill, and I won a national prize for the subject in the course of my studies at Glasgow Nautical College.

However, in the process