Each month we will be featuring a guest writer and this month is Tom McMahon from Tucson, Arizona He said about this story. The following was written as part of a series of trip reports posted on the AOL Scotland Travel Board. I have now divided them into each of the four days we were in Shetland. Tom and his wife Liz visited Eshaness Lighthouse last week.

Part One here. Part Two here.

There is a chill in the air as all three of us don our wellies. The sky is changing very quickly. A canopy of grey clouds is rolling across the Sound that separates Mousa from Mainland. It does not look friendly.

Sandy runs off to the shore and returns with a limpet, a dome-shelled mollusk that generally clings to rocks in the sea. At the moment it is clinging to the palm of Sandy's hand. He gives us a close look at the creature and then scoots off in search of more sea treasures.

Soon we are boarding the Solan IV, an open-decked boat fitted with bench seats. Most of them are occupied as we leave shore for the fifteen-minute crossing to Mousa, the second place that called us to Shetland. The sea is relatively calm but the sky continues to grow more and more threatening.

The pier on Mousa seems to have been built on an outcropping of rock - a stone ledge than runs out from the shore. A family of four seals take turns poking their heads out of the water to scrutinize the vessel full of potential trespassers to this, their island.

As the Solan IV bumps up to the pier, the Captain announces that we have three hours to explore the island and we must be sure to be back at the pier at 5 O'Clock for the return trip. There is a family of five sitting on the bench to the left of us and as this announcement is made, I notice a sort of involuntary jerk from the mother, perhaps a sign that something is not quite right.

And so we all disembark. Liz, Sandy and I hang behind the others as I attempt to snap a few photos. We watch as the Solan IV backs away from the dock, turns, and heads back to Sandwick trailing a long arc of white foam in the dark grey water.

John MacRae's noting that Mousa had experienced a very wet winter was exceedingly right! The ground here is only slightly more solid than a sponge. With nearly every step, our feet sink into the bog, water squishes up from the soggy earth, pools around the soles of our boots and attempts to suck the wellies right off our feet.

The family of five from the boat has been walking along a parallel path which now converges with ours. "Is this the way to see the seals?" the pretty, young mother asks.

"We think so," Liz replies. "We're following our guide, Sandy, here. He lives in Shetland."

Her eyes light up and she calls to her husband who is lagging behind with a daughter to catch up. There are introductions all around. These folks are Fiona and Timothy, and their daughters Alice, Lucy and Eliza. They are up here visiting from a village outside London and they are woefully unprepared for this particular part of their excursion.

"We thought the ride was for twenty minutes to see the Puffins," Fiona says. "When the Captain said three hours, I thought I was going to die."

The fact that Timothy is a barrister is kind of evident by the light tan trenchcoat he is wearing. It is open at the neck revealing a dress shirt beneath. None of them have waterproof shoes. The girls are in stylish sneakers which will be pretty well ruined by the end of this adventure, and Timothy's shoes might just as well be thrown in sea. They are just about as wet.

We invite them to join us and Fiona looks relieved. Lucy, though, isn't the least bit relieved. She's pretty unhappy about this whole thing and whines and carries on fairly frequently throughout our hike. Eliza, the baby, couldn't care less. She's warm as can be, bundled up in her backpack-like baby carrier. And Alice, who is about six years old...well, Alice latches onto Sandy like one of those limpets to a rock She has found the love of her life.

Sandy, of course, is absolutely oblivious to the moon-eyes being cast his way. He is simply being a perfect gentleman. He helps her across the rivulets that appear every thirty or forty steps. He holds her hand to help her step her way across a series of rocks. They go off to search for shells together. And with every little, kind gesture Sandy offers, her adoration grows.

Anyway, Sandy is leading the expedition and I have to confess a certain level of concern over this. I mean this is the young fellow who has had us take a couple of wrong turns in the car or has had us miss our turnoffs altogether.

Mousa seems to be made up of a series of low, rolling hills edged by rocky cliffs. Walking on the island is a challenge all its own. The earth, as mentioned before, is sloshy. Small streams abound here. The grasses at times are "slippy-slidey" - nearly as slick as ice. Several of the other passengers find themselves traveling down small hills on their backsides. There are places where the only way to cross a pond in our path is to do a tightrope walking act on a line of stones. I am concerned about Liz and the knee she hurt back in Tucson. If she was to twist it or otherwise injure it here, it would be far from easy to get her back to the boat dock. But she just forges ahead. After all, I guess, this is just part of the adventure.

The sky is now completely blanketed in grey. The wind has picked up and although it has not rained, we can feel the moisture in the air.

The island's shoreline is rocky and craggy. At one point it looks as if hundreds of rectangular slabs of grey rock had been carved out of the cliffs and then dumped in piles at the water's edge. Further along, we spot two triangular sea stacks jutting out from the water offshore looking like nothing less than the dorsal fins of a pair of gigantic sharks.

Sandy's sense of direction proves to be spot on. We eventually come upon a rocky piece of beach and there, several yards away in the water are a group of seals eyeing us. The youngsters are delighted. Even Lucy stops moaning. The seals bob in the water and disappear below the surface only when the shutter of a camera is about to click.

Just up the beach is the rusted cabin of a boat that the North Sea must have been tossed up here years and years ago.

Rounding a hill, we come across open fields dotted with ewes and several newborn lambs. Sandy discovers the skull of a sheep which most likely simply didn't make it through the winter. He brings it around to show everyone. Alice is much impressed with his bravery at handling such an object.

Now, we come across stone walls and the ruins of several crofters homes - homes that were occupied until the landowners decided it was more profitable to clear the lands of humans and raise sheep. And on another hill stands what is left of what must have been the Laird's home. Something intangible haunts the air here. At one time eleven families lived on the island. By 1861 there were none.

We are now approaching the coast of the island that faces Mainland. As we trudge ahead, a massive round, grey stone tower begins to appear from behind a hill.

It is the reason we are here.

It is the Mousa Broch, and it is magnificent.

To Be Continued

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