| There is an Island off the
coast of a chain of islands off
the western coast of Scotland.
The chain I am referring to is called
The Outer Hebridies and the small Island
that I am talking about is called Taransae.
It was evacuated in the early 1960's, the population
had become too small to sustain itself. They
were moved onto Mull. A few years back myself
and a girl went and hitched a ride onto
the island with a couple of scallop divers.
There we were, alone on a deserted island facing
the North Atlantic during the summer solstice. We had arranged to be picked up by the divers five days from the time we arrived, but for those five days it was absolute isolation. We set up camp in a bothy, would walk the beaches, read the rhyme of the ancient mariner to each other, have great sex.
One day we walked along a beach that was pink. It turned out into the ocean cusping away from the land. I looked down and saw that the colour came from the shells of crabs. Ground to sand, standing there on top of the shells of millions of crabs, returning slowly to the ocean. Tree trunks stripped bare lay on the ocean side of the island, shoes from across Europe reaching their final destination. A boat, a catamaran split in two in the centre of the Island. The desolation was sobering.
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