Charles McLeish: skipper, Hjalmar Bjorge, Northern Light Cruising Company

Adventure cruising for me is about leaving the humdrum rat race behind and journeying to the more remote islands and archipelagos on the west coast of Scotland. There’s definitely a daily routine that helps life aboard run smoothly. One never knows quite what you may see or what weather we might have — the key is to make the best of the unpredictability and of the wildlife. Once, travelling back to Oban from the Outer Isles, we were literally surrounded by minke whales, basking sharks, Atlantic white-sided dolphins, Risso’s dolphins and bottlenose dolphins. So much so that I was having to constantly slow and manoeuvre the ship in order to avoid all the cetaceans. There was also a massive amount of bird life.