“Did you see the seals?” I asked Darren as we sat on the bench above the harbour at Lindisfarne. He’d just arrived on the boat from Seahouses. “No,” he replied. “I’m blind.” He then went on to describe his voyage here: the snort and play of the seals all around his small boat, the spindrift on his face and the whooshing wingbeats of the rushing-by seabirds.