It was heavy and pouring. The air smelled strongly of whisky, the rain was falling like marbles, and the wind was blowing. Lynsay McGeachy, a competitive amateur golfer, mountain cyclist, and head gin distiller at Beinn a Tuirc in Kintyre, was at the center of this scene and exuded coolness as she was ready to take center stage.
With the assembled crowd heckling encouragement, the atmosphere was electrifying, like to a rock concert. But McGeachy was not paying attention, nor was he getting ready to ride a mountain bike, tee off, or engage in any other common sport. She was going to glance at it.
Just like a drunken dragonfly, the flat-bottomed slate pebble whizzed 42 meters across the wet quarry in front of her in a matter of seconds after being pitched waist-high like a baseball. It made fifteen spins through the air. It was an “absolute belter,” as she put it.
During her practice sessions on Torrisdale Beach in Kintyre, a peninsula on Scotland’s southwest coast, McGeachy estimates she skims about 160 rocks per week. “I’m struggling to find stones to train with this year because I’ve thrown so many away,” she said. She views stone skimming more as a vocation than a job. Since I was a young child, I have skimmed. The secret is to locate flat, smooth pebbles. They rotate a lot.
