Sango Bay

I can still taste the amaretto, like liquid marzipan on my tongue. Just enough to keep me warm, and a little merry, as I stroll barefoot along the cool sand. The surf glides up to greet me, encasing my toes in an icy hug. Sango Bay is small. It doesn’t take long to walk the full stretch of the beach, weaving between the rugged outcrops protruding from the sand. I meander up and down, paddling in the sea, perching on rocks, staring up at the sky. With the campsite close by, sitting atop a hill right behind the beach, I feel safe enough to be walking along the dark shore alone. These moments of solitude, under the night’s shadowy canvas, are extremely rare for a young woman like me, so I treasure every second. It’s getting late, and cold, but the call of my bed is not tempting me yet. I wander the border between land and ocean, my feet slapping against the compact wet sand. How could I go to sleep now, in the company of the sea and the stars?

I had run out of camping gas. That meant no nice cooked breakfast in the morning, and no heating throughout the night. Being on the remote north coast of Scotland didn’t give me many options, and by late afternoon all the nearby petrol stations had run out of replacement gas bottles. I didn’t know if the three blankets back at the van would be sufficient against the frigid coastal wind. I was trying to be more laid back. The struggle to remain in control of every aspect whilst on the road is exhausting, things will always go wrong. Why couldn’t this just be something I didn’t worry about obsessively for once? I noticed that I’d begun ruminating about it, and the familiar tightening sensation was already creeping in from the periphery. I stopped walking and instead wiggled my toes into the sand, grounding myself. I dealt with enough anxiety in my day-to-day life to allow this unease to ambush me on a tranquil cove under the stars. Breathing with the back and forth of the waves, I waited until the feeling was being washed away on the tide. Maybe it was just the almond liqueur calming my usual uptight tendencies, or maybe the natural landscape was healing.

Looking out across the waves, I could see nothing through the cloaking darkness. There was no distinct horizon line and the sea and sky merged in an incomprehensible blur of inky midnight blue. Having grown up on the Dorset coast, I’d spent so many years staring south across the ocean. On a clear day you can see the Isle of Wight, with its bright chalk cliffs taking the form of a polar bear. Gazing north felt entirely different. Perhaps because, right at the top of Scotland, I was already quite far north, and the mysterious pull of the isolated Arctic was stronger than ever. Somewhere in the darkness, dotted between me and brooding North were the archipelagos of Faroe and Shetland. To go any further north from here would require remote, windswept isles. I know better than to romanticise the hardships of island living, but the draw has always remained.

I lie for a while, on the dry sand further up the beach, creating new constellations in the sky against a soundtrack of faintly crashing waves. Eventually I dust myself off and decide to head to bed. Not because I’m cold, or because I’m too tired. But because I’m content. The experience has been meditative, almost cathartic, and I now feel ready to leave the cove and the spell it has cast over me. I clamber back up the hill and crawl under my mound of blankets. I wake in the morning after a night undisturbed by the cold. It seems the lack of gas was not something I had needed to be worried about after all. I make a mental note of the outcome, a reassuring reminder for the next inevitable hiccup on the journey. Sango Bay was only home for one night, and as the beach grows smaller in the wing mirror I say a little thank you. Thank you for looking after me. Thank you for calming me. Thank you for keeping me safe so I could walk out into the night alone.