So Algy took one more look down the loch to the south, where the green island floated on the silvery water, and prepared to set off on his journey home…

Algy is thinking of all his friends who are travelling at this time of year, and wishes each of you a safe and pleasant journey, and a joyful arrival at your destination. Turas math dhuibh! xoxo

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Algy found himself a rock that was not too prickly with barnacles, and buried his beak in his wee volume of “Poems of the Sea”. He was thinking of his special friend Stephanie, who was about to end her visit to Skye and the West Highlands and return to her home in Canada. For her sake he read out one of his favourite sea poems to an audience of shellfish and anemones in the rock pool in front of him. He hoped that Stephanie would hear his voice as she flew overhead, way back across the mighty ocean behind him. “Bon voyage et à bientôt!” he cried.

         The sea awoke at midnight from its sleep, 
            And round the pebbly beaches far and wide
            I heard the first wave of the rising tide
            Rush onward with uninterrupted sweep;
         A voice out of the silence of the deep,
            A sound mysteriously multiplied
            As of a cataract from the mountain’s side,
            Or roar of winds upon a wooded steep.
         So comes to us at times, from the unknown
            And inaccessible solitudes of being,
            The rushing of the sea-tides of the soul;
         And inspirations, that we deem our own,
            Are some divine foreshadowing and foreseeing
            Of things beyond our reason or control.

Algy is reading The Sound of the Sea by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.