Background!

I am not an Island Lass - Island Lass is a boat - a 46 foot passenger carrying boat, built along fishing vessel lines in 1967, five years before my own appearance in the world. She and I meander daily in the summer months on waters west of the Isle of Mull in Scotland.

Turus Mara is a family business, begun as Croig Cruises by my dad, Iain. In 1973 he was well ahead of his time understanding people would relish the opportunity to commune with puffins, long before ecotourism was even a whisper in these parts. Tourism didn't yet rule supreme on Mull.

I didn't exactly plan to be a skipper within the family business. I went to school, went to university (honours degree in History and Scottish Studies) travelled the globe and realised that maybe what I was looking for had always been under my nose. How many folk have the view from their office window that I have? How many have discovered leatherback turtle foraging for jellyfish or trashed the timetable to travel an hour with orca instead? I have and this job is a daily privelege that I try to never take for granted.

And I just became a dad for the first time - another (all be it sleep depriving) privelege.

So that's a ludicrously abreviated background but these pages are intended as commentary on the day to day experiences aboard Island Lass and sometimes further afield.