Our passage to Stromness on Orkney Mainland (the largest of 70 islands that together comprise Orkney) from overnight anchorage at Talmine on the north coast of Scotland, was rough but very good sailing. So good in fact that we arrived too early to get into Hoy Sound at the start of the ebb tide. Tidal streams around and between the Orkney Islands are in general strong, in some places very strong (see references to Pentland Firth below), so it pays to time one's arrival and departure to coincide with the direction of tidal flow. Therefore we practised our 'heave-to' procedure in order to wait the 90 minutes for a comfortable entry to Hoy Sound. The sea was rough, however, and it was raining on and off, so our wait was not at all comfortable and we were pleased when the time came to proceed. On the way in we caught a glimpse of another Old Man, that of Hoy, made famous by Chris Bonnington when he was the first person to climb it in 1966.
Whilst on Mainland Orkney, we managed a visit to Skara Brae, a 5000-year old neolithic village with a fascinating history, also Hole O' Howe just down the coast where the clash of sea and coast is awe-inspiring but where hundreds of kittiwakes, gulls and other seabirds nest in impossible places (except for the one which found a prehistoric stone dresser more comfortable). Whilst walking up to the cairn above the Hole, The Skipper was dive-bombed by an arctic tern who obviously feared for its family on the ground nearby.
Skipper also found time for another bit of beach combing ... no Mick, you can't take that back on board the boat!
The following day, Tuesday, the wind turned east and the fog came down. Nevertheless, armed with radar and a keen sense of hearing, we continued with our plan to sail into and round Scapa Flow. It was calm in this lagoon with its wartime history, and the wind was good for sailing ... but in the wrong direction, so to travel the 13 miles to St. Mary's, we sailed 26! No matter, the Churchill Barrier and The Italian Chapel were both sights not to be missed. The latter was created by Italian prisoners of war from two Nissen huts, concrete, barbed wire and parts of a rusting blockship.
That same evening we found our way through the fog to Longhope, on South Walls, formerly an island but now joined to Hoy by a causeway. There we were treated to a personal tour of the modern RNLI Tamar Lifeboat that is stationed at Longhope. Kevin, the coxswain was our tour guide ... even though he is temporarily hors de combat after a recent motocross accident. This did not dampen his enthusiasm though and it transpires that he was one of the chosen few to represent the RNLI as crew on the Eastbourne lifeboat that took part in the Queen's Jubilee river pageant in June, before he fell off his bike.
Last night, Wednesday, we braved the Pentland Firth to return to the Scottish mainland. The Pentland Firth is a notorious stretch of water that separates Orkney from the northern tip of the Scottish mainland. It has a reputation for being one of the most dangerous stretches of water in the world where tides can run at up to 16 knots under some circumstances ... no match for a small yacht with maximum engine speed of 7 knots. However, our passage plan worked perfectly (another example of getting the timing right to fit in with the tides) and FF achieved a speed over the ground of 13.3 knots at one point even though the actual boat speed through the rough water was only 3.4 knots! It was quite rough at times as the wind, although light, was against the tide, but FF coped admirably. There is a good YouTube video available if you want to see for yourself what typical turbulence in the Firth is like (search on key words Pentland Firth, Swona, tides, tidal race). Only trouble was that our passage was all done in thick fog so we did not see very much. We passed round Duncansby Head, the second-most northerly point on the UK mainland (having passed Dunnet Head - the most northerly and a few miles to the west - on our way to Orkney a couple of days earlier) at about 21:30. You'll have to take our word for it because that's where it is, even though we couldn't see it! So now we've passed three out of the four UK extremities and only the most easterly to go.
Arriving at the mouth of Wick Bay at 23:00, in thick fog but the sky not yet quite dark so trusting completely in our excellent chart plotter and GPS system, we could not see a thing, no lights, no shapes, no nothing, until we were about 80 feet off the main pier where a sharp left turn is required to prevent collision with the commercial harbour wall. Heaven knows how they used to do it in the old days ... well I guess people like us would not have gone out in those conditions. Anyway, job done - phew! is all I can say. Thank goodness for radar and GPS though. What would we do without them now? Thick fog again today in Wick Harbour so not sure how long we will be staying until we venture on further south.
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