A Wild Call: One Man’s Voyage in Pursuit of Freedom

by Martyn Murray

Martyn Murray was finding modern life, with all its restrictions and controls, suffocating. Following years of soul-searching, his father’s death triggered him into opening the old logbooks and charts to retrace the sailing trips they had once shared together. He determined to revisit those waters and bring home the freedom of the seas. Falling in love with an old ketch in Ireland, he bought and restored her enough to sail back to Scotland. Over the next two summers he cruised Scotland’s Western Isles, with one to reach St Kilda – the remotest part of the British Isles, 40 miles from the Outer Hebrides. During his cruising he considered the islanders and their sense of freedom – often restricted by absentee landlords and officialdom. He railed against bureaucracy and commercial enterprise restricting the yachtsman’s ability to roam free. For parts of his journey he was joined by the beguiling Kyla; a rare, independent spirit who both excited and frustrated Martyn. But much of Martyn’s voyaging was undertaken alone, encountering a variety of places, situations and characters along the way. He attempted his long-awaited sail out to St Kilda through the teeth of a storm, believing that achieving this feat would bring him the freedom and clarity that he craved. What he came up against was far more testing and turbulent than the tides and gales of the North Atlantic. As he sailed back to the mainland things fell into a sense of achievement in completing the arduous voyage alone, but – most of all – an understanding of who he is, clarity on his relationship with Kyla and a real sense of his own freedom.

Table of Contents

Preface

PART 1. Wild Boat Chase, 2. Dog Watch, 3. Did We Mean To Go To Sea?, 4. Fatal Flaw, 5. In the Wake of Saints

PART 6. Glorious Day of Salvage, 7. The Sea Gypsy, 8. Molio’s Cave, 9. Mull of Kintyre, 10. Fiddler’s Green, 11. Ring of Bright Bubbles, 12. Stormbound, 13. Wild Mountain Thyme

PART 14. Cup and Ring, 15. Wolf Island, 16. Isle of The Great Women, 17. Battle of Dreams, 18. The Dark Laird, 19. Piloting a Craft Called Freedom, 20. Flight of the Fulmar, 21. Abode of Ancestors, 22. Running Free

352 pages, Paperback

Published November 10, 2017

About the author

Martyn Murray is an author and scientist with a love of nature. For many years, he lived and worked in the wilds of Africa, first in the Zambezi Valley and then in the plains and woodlands of Serengeti whilst Nuffield Research Fellow at the University of Cambridge. Martyn’s concern is with the relationship between humans and wild nature which he sees as intensely complicated, controversial and yet vital to our common future. His passion is writing and he has distilled his thoughts into a debut adventure-travel book, The Storm Leopard, which is a journey across Africa and into the heart of the environmental crisis. He followed it up with Charles Darwin’s Origin of Species: Bite Sized which is a short adaptation of the 1859 First Edition, and ideal for those without much time who need to grasp the essence of this profoundly important book. He has recently completed a second adventure-travel book, Beyond the Hebrides: A Voyage in Search of Freedom. Whilst journeying by boat, Martyn turns the spotlight on humans. What makes us free spirits? Is it related in some way to wild nature and is it too under threat?

Martyn now lives in North Berwick a few miles along the Firth of Forth from Edinburgh. In the summer he migrates west to sail in the Hebrides.