Tobermory’s a pleasant place to watch boats come and go. Scooped out of Mull’s left ear, it sits out of the wind and presents its face to the sun. The day I was there, the van on the pier was serving scallops and chips, and several of us were munching away, gazing out at the anchorage. The difference between me and the rest, however, was that they were just watching, but I was waiting. Waiting for my boat to come in.

I was feeling a bit guilty about joining the Ezra late — the other paying guests had gone aboard a couple of days earlier. And from what I could see, looking down the Sound of Mull, they were having a hard passage, beating into the wind towards me. But that guilt turned to pride as the Ezra turned the last corner and revealed herself to be the most handsome boat in the bay.

If you’re going to be fetched by a handsome boat then you might as well do it with a sizeable audience in an uncommonly pretty place. So when Sam, Ezra’s skipper, sculled the dinghy ashore to pick me up, I tried to make it look like I knew what I was doing. And prayed that I didn’t slip and fall in the water.

Although she is newly built, Ezra’s shipwrights have been very faithful to the pilot cutters that plied their trade in the late-19th century. With an oak frame, larch planking, cream sails and a mast of Douglas fir, she’s a beautiful piece of work.

That fidelity to the original, however, means no automatic winches or nylon rope; everything had to be hauled by hand, even the anchor. On 44ft of gaff-rigged boat, complete with topsails and staysails in addition to the standard jib and main, that meant a lot of learning of ropes for us novices on board.

Ezra is based at Ardfern, south of Oban, handily positioned for a tour of the highlands and islands. Turn left for Jura, Islay and Gigha, with lots of anchorages and gentler walking. Turn right for Mull, Skye, Rum and the Outer Hebrides, for wilder stuff.

The plan for this trip, which was to be a combination of sailing and scrambling, was to head for Rum to do the Cuillin ridge, a stunning walk that is rarely tackled thanks to its inaccessibility — unless you happen to be on a boat.

My arrival on board, to join the doctor and three geologists already installed, brought a fortuitous change in the weather. The wind shifted overnight, and we woke next morning in Tobermory harbour to find our bow pointing in a different direction. We were able to shimmy round the Point of Ardnamurchan and set a direct course for Rum.

It wasn’t all plain sailing. The wind strengthened as the day progressed to force seven or eight, and Ezra, now substantially reefed (sails reduced), tackled an increasingly heavy sea. The deck was regularly awash and, during a momentary loss of control, a rope was ripped from its mooring. All in all, it was a relief to reach the sanctuary of Rum’s Loch Scresort.

Next morning, we were up early for the ridge walk. The route took us through heather and bog myrtle razored by high winds, and as we climbed, the panorama around us opened up. First, it was Eigg close by and Canna over the other side. Then it was Skye to the north, Knoydart northeast, Coll to the south and the beginnings of Harris and Lewis out to the west. The clouds lifted with us, until finally we were on the ridge in scudding sunshine, with views that none of us will forget.

The top of Rum is the territory of those wonderfully athletic seabirds Manx shearwaters. Some 60,000 pairs return here every night, to their burrows in the turf. By the time we reached the ridge, those burrows had been empty for hours, but there were a couple of fresh casualties, presumably caught by Rum’s eagles, and picked so clean that the only remains were a pair of angel’s wings lying on the grass.

Rum’s gabbro rock is very climber-friendly, and we barely needed the rope as we navigated the ridge. The wind relented, and the island didn’t look nearly so forbidding from on high. Prizefighter squalls circled the shores, but left us alone as we did the peaks of Hallival, Askival and Trollaval.

As we staggered back onto the foreshore at Loch Scresort in the gathering gloom, one of the party pointed out that we hadn’t seen another soul all day. In some of the best possible island and mountain scenery in Scotland, that’s a rare experience indeed.

As for the return journey, conditions were kind to us. Or perhaps we’d simply got to know our boat and worked better as a crew. We passed Ardnamurchan and Tobermory, sailing along the Sound of Mull. On the final morning, we were sliding on the tide between Luing and Lunga when a cable-laying ship approached from the opposite direction. Its bridge was illuminated by bright flashes.

“What was that?” I wondered, aloud. “Perhaps they’ve got electrical problems?” “Heavens, no,” said Sam. “You forget you’re on Ezra. You don't get many boats as handsome as this around here. The captain's taking our photograph.”

Details: A six-night trip aboard Ezra costs from £590 and can be arranged through Wilderness Scotland (0131 625 6635, www.wildernessscotland.com), which also offers sailing, walking, mountain biking and sea-kayaking trips throughout the Highlands.

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