Radical changes of direction seem to require a great deal of drama, at least in the recounting: a decisive moment, a flight from unhappiness, a marshalling of immense internal reserves. In truth, they are often more gently underdetermined than that, as is Susan Smillie’s absorbing account of her life at sea in her boat Isean. There were catalysts – the mutation of a long-term romantic relationship into a deep friendship, the sense of fracturing and fractiousness that beset the UK after the referendum in 2016 – but there was also a more gradual realignment of priorities, a slow realisation that there may be a different and more generative way to live.
Maybe it started when Smillie rescued Isean from a boatyard in the west of Scotland, the vessel’s graceful lines blinding her to the thousands of pounds that would be needed for restoration. Before long, pottering up and down the Sussex coast didn’t seem enough, and Smillie set herself the challenge of gaining the knowledge and expertise necessary for longer, more complicated trips. At the same time, as she progressed through her 40s, with a good and long-worked-for job as an editor at the Guardian, she came to appreciate that it’s quite possible to outgrow one’s dreams. A course correction was needed.
With a voluntary redundancy cheque in her pocket, Smillie said farewell to her houseboat in London and decided to sail Isean round Britain, eventually making her way up to her father’s home in Dunoon in Argyll and Bute. Immediately, she felt liberated by the prospect of doing exactly as she pleased in as much time as it took. But at Penzance, with Isean in dry dock for repairs, another plan struck her: what if she turned left at Land’s End?
To the non-sailors among us, this sounds utterly implausible: surely there’s a vast difference between tacking up and down the coast with land always in sight and attempting to cross a whole stretch of sea? Indeed, it was fairly implausible to Smillie herself – “Surely I couldn’t just sail to Spain?” she thinks, before upgrading her radio equipment and buying a liferaft. There is a lot of staring at charts of the Bay of Biscay and worrying about the fabled “big Brittany seas” before it dawns on her that she had better get on and go. What she didn’t realise was how long she’d be gone for.
The Half Bird’s title is partly a reference to the name Isean, which is Scots Gaelic for “chick”, and partly a nod to the form taken by the sirens of classical mythology, those temptresses who enchant and then imprison Odysseus. But if Smillie is lured towards the sea by a combination of restlessness on land and the thrill of finding herself accompanied by dolphins as she makes her way through the Pillars of Hercules and across the Mediterranean towards Greece, she is also swift to recognise peril. Sailing solo requires meticulous preparation, consistent awareness that weather conditions and sea state can change in an instant, and a readiness to draw on reserves of stamina and ingenuity.
It also requires an entirely different way of looking at the world. Smillie writes persuasively of her shift towards having and wanting less, in both material and emotional senses. She makes countless friends throughout her voyage and often wonders whether to stay a little longer in an especially beautiful or hospitable spot, but is keenly attuned to her need for a more portable, mobile life. And she is aware, too, of its fragility. A frightening night-time encounter with a group of desperate people fleeing Algeria brings home the reality that her journey is a matter of choice; chance meetings with aggressive men underline the particular vulnerability of the woman who chooses to make her way alone; the increasing frequency of unpredictable storms demonstrates the negative impact of human activity on the environment in which we live.
There is also the matter of those left behind. With her mind and body focused on the daily exigencies of keeping her head above water, Smillie finds herself contemplating the losses she has suffered: of her brother Stephen, who was killed in a car crash when she was in her 20s; of her close cousin Lorraine, who died of cancer at 34; and of her mother, who shielded her children from the knowledge that she was seriously ill for many years before she, too, died. These moving elements of her narrative are conveyed with impressive fortitude and an understanding that her new way of life can be a way of honouring her lost loved ones.
It’s hard to read The Half Bird without wondering whether you could do it too: jack it all in, head south, catch fish off the side of your beautiful little floating home. You probably could, as long as you put in the years of learning how to read tide tables, scrape barnacles, operate bilge pumps. It may be better to start by pondering Smillie’s wider message – that to work out what will truly make you happy, you first need to stop and smell the air around you.
• The Half Bird by Susan Smillie is published by Michael Joseph (£16.99). To support the Guardian and Observer, order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply.
