The oars are rough and square,
except at the ends, so one cannot do so with impunity. Again, a
curagh with two light people in it floats on the water like a
nut-shell, and the slightest inequality in the stroke throws the
prow round at least a right angle from its course. In the first
half-hour I found myself more than once moving towards the point I
had come from, greatly to Michael's satisfaction.
This morning we were out again near the pier on the north side of
the island. As we paddled slowly with the tide, trolling for
pollock, several curaghs, weighed to the gunnel with kelp, passed us
on their way to Kilronan.
An old woman, rolled in red petticoats, was sitting on a ledge of
rock that runs into the sea at the point where the curaghs were
passing from the south, hailing them in quavering Gaelic, and asking
for a passage to Kilronan.
The first one that came round without a cargo turned in from some
distance and took her away.
The morning had none of the supernatural beauty that comes over the
island so often in rainy weather, so we basked in the vague
enjoyment of the sunshine, looking down at the wild luxuriance of
the vegetation beneath the sea, which contrasts strangely with the
nakedness above it.
