Weather remains too rough for pleasurable sailing round Scapa Flow and so we opt for a ferry ride out to Hoy and back. We pass some famous seaweed eating sheep…but they are not on North Ronaldsay!

As it turns out, driving rain keeps us in the 40’s themed café in the museum at Lyness on Hoy. An old radio with printed stations such as Hilversum and Light Programme on its dial (but with modern innards), is playing war-time tunes. We think about an impromptu tea-dance but would look odd in boots and oilies… The whole area is derelict WW2 oil tanks, gun batteries and other war detritus. The museum however, is strangely compelling, with stories of the activities of both British and German navies in both world wars.

A constant theme of our trip from the south up the East Coast has been the increasing levels of friendliness and warmth from almost everyone we meet. We sailed over from Wick in the company of Alan and his long-suffering crew Ian on Cordula and were invited for a glorious lunch with Ian and Annette at their house on the beach on South Ronaldsay. They are not the first people we have met either, who have left Cornwall to get away from it all in Orkney.

The boat has had a changing complement over just a few days…Paul, our faithful crew, herring gutter admirer and curry cooker has left for Majorca, John’s wife Chris has arrived and now James’ wife Yee Tak and nephew Byron have joined. A hired car for the day gets us around the main tourist sites and provides refuge from the constant wind (and occasional rain). We have seen Neil Oliver’s TV programmes about the Neolithic settlements here, but the reality is awe-inspiring. The Scara Brae village, the Maes Howe burial mound and the Ring of Brodgar seem to touch us down the generations even more than more recent relics and monuments. In reality of course, they are the relics of ordinary people like us, not just the grandiose buildings of kings, queens or bishops. We spend time just standing next to their 5000 year old village on a windswept rocky beach, gazing out to the same horizon as they did…and wondering what on earth would induce any lunatic to set out to sea!

In a similar sort of vein, the Italian Chapel is also oddly compelling. Built by Italian prisoners of war out of two old Nissan huts, it is a small piece of beautifully decorated Italy next to their old POW camp. Once again it speaks of just ordinary men and now stands testament to an enduring friendship with the islanders.

Driving to South Ronaldsay is now possible because of firstly the sunk block-ships and then the Churchill Barriers, erected to close off the Eastern entrances to Scapa Flow….after a U-Boat sent over 800 men and boys to a watery death on HMS Royal Oak at the start of the war. Churchill apparently convinced the Italian POW builders that it was a community project to link the islands and not a war project…!

Unsurprisingly the weather dictates a fair chunk of life up here and since this blog is not intended to be a (very) rough guide, what follows is just a random collection of thoughts and impressions in no particular order…

So what have we learned?…that modern scotch whisky could not exist without bourbon or maybe sherry and that prior to someone buying a load of old casks to keep their raw whisky in, it was just that…raw and tasteless. Except that the tiny Scapa Distillery let us taste some of their raw spirit from the heart of the distillation and uniquely they had managed to keep the malted barley flavour. It was very different from what we now know as scotch…and very nice…and unobtainable. Scotch whisky can only be called scotch if it has been matured for at least 3 years…and nicked flavours from the Spanish or Americans! The other slightly disappointing fact…the barley for many distilleries (in this part of Scotland at least) is all malted in Berwick on Tweed (in England!) and then brought up in lorries….disappointing fact number 2 is that the raw spirit is then tankered back down south to be put into casks…and then brought back up for ageing here. Not quite as romantic as we thought. However, the tastes are still great and we’ll keep on drinking the stuff.

A windy walk out round the headland opposite Hoy did little to reassure us for the passage out of Scapa Flow when we finally depart for the Western Isles. More strong currents with ‘roosts’ (local word for rough water and overfalls) means careful planning about both tide and wind strengths and directions. Local sailors are, as always, incredibly helpful and reassuring, but also warn about getting it wrong!

The residents of the graveyard have a wild and windy view over to Hoy which, whatever the weather, seems to have a cloud topping giving it an odd volcanic appearance.

Our trip to Inverness noted a surfeit of barbers (Orcadians are much less well coiffed) and queues for the ice-cream parlours…this bit also seems to be an Orcadian predilection. In the middle of nowhere for us (but centre of the world for the many Neolithic Orcadians at Maeshowe) there is a bungalow selling ice-creams. It turns out not only to be open, but in the 35 minutes we sit there waiting for the bus, there is a continual stream of people coming in…some to sit like us, others just to get take away…they are also locals. Perhaps they are closer to their Neolithic roots than we think.

We have been hoping to find local music on our trip. Half expecting fiddlers or pipers to be sat in cosy pubs by the peat fire. This was in part rectified by an outfit called Rack and Ruin at the Royal Hotel in Stromness. They are from Cullivoe on Yell in Shetland…and they play mostly blue-grassy covers mixed with some Scottish, Shetland and Irish folk. The usual chaos of pub bands, involving cables worthy of the Stones and enough duct tape to stretch across the Pentland Firth, eventually comes together around 10 and the place starts jumping. A slick ‘sting’ operation by (Wives? Mothers?) the merchandising crew involves one flirting shamelessly with drunk men (and women) while the other sizes them up and throws a perfectly fitting T Shirt across the room.

A deft move and the mark is left wearing the shirt and fishing for yet another tenner…she helps!

At 1.30 they are either out of T shirts  or songs or both. The whole pub sings a Shetlandish song and then spills out into the street. Drunk, rowdy but never lairy and a great evening even for this folk-sceptic.

It is not often we are able to have photos of our own boat on the water, so these are a few taken by Alan and Ian in Cordula…

…and with the Pentland Skerries in the background…

 

off South Ronaldsay and finally with Mainland (Orkney) getting close.

The day dawns clear, bright and looking very changeable. A relaxed start to the day nevertheless sees us shipshape and cleared from breakfast when a tap on the coach roof signals the arrival of our Harbourmaster for the day – Lyndsey. She watched us from home motorsailing in yesterday in perfect conditions, and she congratulates us on seeing Scapa Flow at its best. Stromness Marina is run very efficiently by friendly and knowledgable volunteers, and in no time our arrangements are clarified and we get lots of good advice on matters nautical and touristy.

 

Paul only has a couple of days left with us, so we plan a day to include the Neolithic stones and a look at Kirkwall while the weather lasts, and head for the bus stop at the marina. More friendly advice from bus driver Maureen see us furnished with weekly Megapasses and we head for Stenness, after only a short 10 minute delay at the stop while the intricacies of validating the new bus smart cards are refined between Maureen and the depot…… Other passengers seem mildly amused rather than grumpy at the delay, and we are beginning to like this place and its people a lot.

We’re dropped off at the cross roads we need rather than the village ( all part of the service!), and reach the tall majestic Stones of Stenness after a brisk 15 min walk.

A brief photo call later we head on over the narrow causeway between the salty Loch of Stenness and the freshwater Loch of Harray, and soon reach the Ring of Brodgar. This is impressively large, symmetrical and complete, and we spend some time studying the timeline display setting it at 3500BC within 1000 years of the first known human civilisations.

Just touching the stones takes us back over the millenia and we try to imagine the individuals whose lives these stones commanded…

The weather looks to be closing in, a 35 min very brisk walk back might just connect with the next hourly bus, and Skara Brae is still 4-5 miles away – so we head back and just make the bus for Kirkwall.

Coffee seems overdue by this time, so it’s off to Strynds tea shop round the corner from St Magnus cathedral. Here coffee is forgotten as excellent carrot and parsnip soup with Bere bannocks (a tasty dark flour soda bread) is on offer. After an all too short look at Kirkwall it’s time to head back to explore Stromness., which turns out to be a mixture of intriguing alleys and cottages…

…and a working port…

…with not many trees!

While the weather closes in a couple of hours fly pleasurably by in the museum. This very much focuses on the all aspects of the town’s past, including fishing, whaling, lighthouses, trade and the historic wrecks from the scuttling of the German Fleet after WW1. Perhaps the most riveting were exhibits from the expedition of the eminent explorer John Rae who completed the NorthWest Passage routeing in the mid 1800’s. A rubberised fabric ‘Airboat’ he used to ferry expedition members one at a time across icy cold rivers in Northern Canada (paddling bare handed with a tin plate!) looked uncomfortably similar to our Avon Redcrest – they must have been tough in those days. Recruiting posters for the Hudson Bay Company show just how international the outlook has been on Orkney for centuries.

Back to the centre of town to a good meal and evening in the Ferry Inn, only to receive a text from Alan, Skipper of Cordula who sailed in company with us yesterday, to say he’d made up and dropped off a rubberised-pipe fender plank for us. We weren’t able to contact him to join us in the pub, but the plank fits and works beautifully. We look forward to renewing our acquaintance with him in the near future, and remain very grateful for the friendliness and support of those we meet in this northern tip of the U.K.

 

Sunday 2^nd April 2017 and the day dawns with rain and general drear.  Alan and Ian on Cordula confirm a 13.00 departure from Wick with us and we have a late-ish brekky at Wetherspoons. Back on heydays and she is all ready by 12, with everything which can move properly stowed tied or lashed. We are in our wet weather gear…with thermals and lifelines at the ready…and we’re hot. The sun is out and the wind is almost non-existent…we’re strangely anxious, almost like waiting for the dentist. We’ve read so much about crossing the Pentland Firth with its ‘walls of water’ and other dire warnings, that despite the harbourmaster telling us we are set fair for not even getting our slippers wet, we still feel apprehensive.

Cordula is first away and we follow her out of Wick at around 3 hours before HW Dover. This gives us plenty of time to get off Duncansby head by the time the tide turns West. Following Cordula and Malcolm the Harbourmaster’s advice, we hug the coast (more or less the 20m depth contour) and pick up a much reduced southerly stream and in places a positive lift. Another small boat is not far behind and they shadow our course, remaining as just an outline in the early afternoon sun.

We get the genoa filling with a southerly breeze an soon Duncansby (and the end of Scotland) starts to make its presence felt. A couple on the cliff top stop and stare, presumably wondering why there are several middle-aged and even elderly men on small boats quite so close to them.

We are just off Duncansby itself by 3.15 which is around 90 minutes or so before the West going stream starts (and what is recommended in the various pilot guides). We radio Cordula, wondering whether we should hang around for a bit or anchor. But with light southerly winds they suggest pressing on (albeit slowly) to get as far towards Lowther Rock before the tide really turns West. Soon we can see John O’Groats and then Dunnet Head opening up to the West and the clear lights of Pentland and Muckle Skerries to the East.

The sea so far shows no sign of its infamous nature…just a few oddly flat circular patches surrounded by wavelets. Certainly nothing worse than our own Hurst Castle narrows…so far. We keep Lowther Rock firmly on the nose while all the time making sure that we are getting close to Muckle Skerries…but not too close. Gradually our easting reduces and within less than 15 minutes we are feeling the effects of the westerly stream. We keep heading for Lowther whilst keeping an eye first on Stroma and then on Swona to make sure we are not being swept on to them.

Halfway across we throw our empty Old Pulteney bottle into the sea. Not a mindless act of littering but it contains a message to a potential finder that we will reward them with a filled bottle of the same in return for a good story. It goes overboard with good wishes to the finder for a long and happy life.

With wind again filling the genoa, the northern tip of Swona starts to open up and we are making over 7kt over the ground. The worst is over…we didn’t get our slippers wet and we feel a strange mixture… of elation that we are now in Orkadian waters, gratitude that it was very easy and even an odd sense of almost anti-climax. Our companions divert into Sandwick Bay so that Ian can wave at his wife…their house is by the beach and she does indeed wave a tea towel enthusiastically…at us before realising she is waving at the wrong boat.

We still have the tide with us as we slide past Flotta at over 8kt and into Hoxa Sound. A fast cat is the only other boat we see as Scapa Flow itself opens up.

We are in flat calm now and the genoa is furled once more as we bask in an early evening sun gradually sinking over Hoy. The big rocky island dominates the landscape to the west, but everywhere else is big sky and now we start to think about the final approaches to Stromness itself.

The westerly stream out of Scapa Flow is making itself felt now and we edge north away from Graemsay to avoid being rushed past the entrance and spat out into the North Atlantic. We can see breakers across the sound and would rather not tangle with them at this stage in our voyage.

We tie up at the marina, thankful to be out of our sweaty gear, just as Cordula comes in alongside.  John James and Paul have a group hug on the foredeck with a sense of a major milestone in the UK trip being reached…even if it wasn’t heroic in the end. We celebrate with a bottle (or two) of fizz inviting Alan, Ian and his wife on board as well.

Footnote: On the passage across the Pentland Firth…a number of factors we have thought about since…

• We did lots of reading and listening to locals and decided to go with the easiest winds we could…it ended up south or SW 2-3 and as close to neaps whilst still arriving in mostly daylight. This also meant however that we took our time getting to Wick and met some great people along the way and got to know NE Scotland just that little bit better.
• We erred on the side of caution by getting to Duncansby Head a bit earlier than planned. We were prepared to wait to cross, but with slight seas, decided to get some of the way over (making just 2.5 -3kt at times) before the west going tide started. With a stronger wind over south east going tide this may have been too uncomfortable. We were around half springs, but nearer springs a stronger current may have taken us too close to Muckle Skerries.
• We had great visibility and this, added to the electronic aids, reassured us that we were not being swept too far west.
• One final point….as Alan later remarked, you don’t treat the Firth as one body of water. There are complex and changing currents, counter-currents and eddies…expect the unexpected.
• …or maybe we just got lucky!

 

The last post suggested that we will go on Saturday provided no SW winds…we’ve got SW winds. Sunday looks OK so for the moment Wick is our home. Friday breakfast in Weatherspoons means we can all catch up on other aspects of digital life…and free refills of coffee to boot. Wick has the edge on Thurso, with some signs of life and refurbishment going on. The silver darlings have gone from here too, although some white fish is landed alongside the usual hobby and part time crabbers and lobsters. Rig supply is reasonably buoyant and the new wind farms will keep the supply ships running. The demise of Dounreay is also a problem though.

The afternoon is wet, but we mind not a bit as we spend a happy couple of hours at the Old Pulteny Distillery. Slightly disappointed that all they really produce is a pure but tasteless spirit (with bought in malted barley and dried yeast)…all the flavour comes from the used barrels previously holding bourbon or (more rarely these days) sherry. That doesn’t mean however that we don’t enjoy the 12, 17 and 21 year old malts! However, despite the 17 y.o. being our preference, we buy a bottle of the usual 12…£125 for the 21 y.o. is a bit too much even for us.

The best meal of the trip so far is at the French restaurant in town, which is pricey but classical French. The chef is genuinely French who fell in love with a local girl many years ago…turns out however that he has been to see Saints at the old Dell several times and we chat happily for a while about the good old times in Southampton.

We spend a long time checking and re-checking tide times and distances and forecasts for our trip over the firth on Sunday. The tide gate off Duncansby Head is very precise…just 15 mins too late and we risk being swept south of Swona and in to the Merry Men of Mey nastiness with not enough boat speed even at our best to stem the currents.

Another sailing boat arrives in the night from Fraserbrough after what they tell us was a wet and rough crossing across the Moray Firth. Alan and Ian who live on Orkney, have recently bought the boat and are planning to sail across on Sunday as well. They are experienced in the crossing and it is a relief that they have the same conclusions about weather and times as us. They are happy for us to keep them company for the crossing…especially it seems, as they are less than confident in their gearbox…not that we fancy towing them across! Our current thoughts are for a lazy Saturday and then a 13.00 departure from Wick to get us off Duncansby Head just after HW Dover and before the tide fully turns west.

We gaze out across to where we think Orkney is, hopefully the next post here will confirm or….

 

Waking to the sound of heavy rain doesn’t promise a great day and we’re still firmly stuck in the mud. But by 9 we are afloat and a watery sun is trying to burn off the early mist hanging low over the hills. The first of the fishing boats are getting ready to leave and soon we too are pushing out of the harbour and into a breathless day. We are sad to be leaving Helmsdale in some ways, as the little town grew on us over the last few days.

The coastline is dominated by cliffs and caves and fissures and even some waterfalls, with low cloud or mist a beautiful but chilly reminder that we are still among the earliest of the yachties to be venturing out.

The ever-present terns, gannets and guillemots with a few cormorants are joined briefly by a few seals, but the dolphins resolutely refuse to play.

Soon we are turning in for Wick and follow a fishing boat into a surprisingly lumpy harbour entrance…presumably the remnants of the recent easterlies which kept us in Helmsdale.

We have barely tied up when the harbour-master’s bother ambles down to meet us with keys and codes for the various gates and doors to loos and showers etc. he is soon joined by the owner of another elderly Moody and we chat on about the trip to Orkney. The message is always the same…get the tides right and it’s a doddle but….and then they frown. The harbour master himself is pleased to see us, even if he does chortle at his reference to us as ‘last of the summer wine’. He is very reassuring about the trip over and shows us in great detail the eddies and counter-currents which will get us to and through the Pentland firth in one piece. We decide that we will make the trip on Saturday assuming no SW winds.

 

Helmsdale grows on us strangely and has some odd quirks: the first being a favourite fish and chip shop of the novelist Barbara Cartland. It turns out that the previous proprietor saw her as something of a hero and the place still retains an overwhelming sense of pink Kitsch. There is nothing kitsch about the food however…a special fish tea consists of two enormous battered haddock with peas and a huge bowl of chips on the side. We struggle…including through the following night trying to digest vast amounts of batter and assorted carbs. The lads next to us manage this as well as a follow on of sticky toffee pudding. We imagine that they regard us effete southerners somewhat suspiciously…On a similar theme, we are slightly surprised that the (closed) hotel opposite the Bannockburn Arms was to have been the gay biker centre for touring NE Scotland. It would seem that many bikers come to do the North Coast 500 and that several may even be gay!

The Bannockburn Arms has some decent beer and we snigger like naughty schoolboys as we ask for another sheepshagger. Helmsdale also turns out to be a haven for escaping Londoners…the landlord is from Lewisham, a young man doing up his boat is from Beckenham and then to cap it all an old man (older than us) and his dog have lived in Maiden Newton.

We intended to sail on to Lybster, but the difficult entrance in Easterly winds, the lack of facilities and the offer from the Helmsdale harbourmaster of another night for free, convince us to spend a day at our leisure in Helmsdale. A bracing walk up the hill to the saltire flying proudly at the top…

…is followed by a meander along the river to a great little museum called Timespan, dedicated to all things herring. Paul is clearly entranced by muscular women smeared in herring guts and spends longer than strictly necessary describing them to Trish later that evening.

The following day is also less than helpful in terms of wind and we decide on a train ride to Thurso. The train ride turns out to be the highlight of the day and is a ride through peat bogs, salmon fishing rivers and more stags and their women than you would imagine. The only thing missing (for those of us old enough to remember) is Fife Robertson in a deerstalker and pipe. We take a bus out to as close to Dunnet Head as possible and walk out about halfway to the most northerly point in mainland UK (not John O’Groats).

The Orkneys, or more precisely Hoy on the left with just a mild seeming Pentland Firth in between. No sign of the Merry Men of Mey today!

A bus back leaves us with 2 hours in Thurso, which seems about 1 hour 55mins too long. The visitor centre however turns out to be a gem with a museum and gallery and a café with decent wifi (not to be sneered at in these parts). John starts early on the beer (Dark Island).

Back in Helmsdale, Paul cooks up a great Aloo Gobi and we decide on one last pint of (snigger) sheepshagger at the Bannockburn. It’s shut! The landlord looks at us through the window and ignores us. Sod ‘im. We go over slightly disgruntled to the Belgrave Arms…it’s a gem! Its friendly, there’s a real fire, some decent beer and some good company. A Ross County supporter turns out to be  great company and also knowledgeable about winds tides and the sea in general. In common with so many others we have met, his eyebrows knit at the mention of crossing the Pentland Firth. “Yee’ll not be messing with that…”

Our final night in Helmsdale solves some issues…the buoys which we had been seeking in vain on our way in, are residing in the yard of the harbour master’s office! The smoke alarm in the loos still pings. It will probably still be pinging in a year’s time… or whenever we next visit. We all agree that were we ever back this way we’ll come back to Helmsdale.

We finish the evening listening to Pink Floyd….what great memories.

Fresh coffee and an early tide
lift boat and crew, to the kind of morning
where breath and clichés hang.
The bonds to land and pontoons are loosened once more
And Heydays slips out into a calm
Sun-dappled Firth.
The last of the kelp glistens before sliding once more
beneath these cold northern waters.
And the magic of the moment is strong enough
or unfortunate enough
to suggest that a scientist can be lyrical…

A great day for dolphins we are told
And we scan the glassy sea
But the log tells its own tale
“Still no ***ing dolphins”.
Have Attenborough and Cousteau been lying all along
Fake dolphins…even in the mist!
The birds are real enough
but we’d make a twitcher cry
Iceland Gulls, Common Gulls and Kittiwakes?
Certainly a Fulmar grazing the waves and
bossing the Guillemots who dive away
from us as well.

The peaks of the Northern Highlands rise and beckon
from an indistinct and distant shore.
But the wind remains even more fickle
than a fast data link in Dorset.
It taunts us with a bit of easting
but scarcely creates ripples
while Lossiemouth fades into the morning haze.

More coffee…
brings the morning alive.
With a sudden burst of energy
we fill the sails and loose the engine.

It truly does feel alive.
And we are intrepid sailors gazing steely-eyed
into the cold bright north.

We ponder unkindly on past colleagues
Sat at desks
Daydreaming on a Monday morning.
As we close the shore we scan in vain
for buoys, or markers….

Or anything to reassure that our blinking technology
Is not just more
Fake information.
The river opens up against a rocky foreshore…
Fenders out, ropes ready, sails down and peace
Shattered again by the Thorneycroft.
But tranquillity soon returns to us
…and Helmsdale.

Footnote: We phoned the harbourmaster at Lossie to apologise for leaving without paying for the final night, but we get a quick call back to apologise for us having taken the bottom at low tide…and to have the last night on the house. They promise to dredge and hope we’ll come back!

Helmsdale is approaching only its 200th birthday as a town. It was created by the Duke of Sutherland as a place to bring those who he had cleared to make way for sheep and to provide a labour force for the emerging herring industry.

His come-uppance arrived in the form of a murder plot gone wrong resulting in the death of his own family and the final delicious irony of a memorial sculpture to the clearances built on the ruins of his own castle. Ha!

 

A creeping sense of toilets started to pervade the boat and Heydays is definitely less than fragrant (and nothing to do with curries). A longish saga cut fortunately short, involves repairs to the toilet diverter valve and plenty of Dettol in the bilges (and us). The dodgiest moment is when local people start arriving on their boats…no-one actually says ‘you English smell’, but Nicola has probably got a couple of converts.

Lossie takes on a completely different air on a sunny mothering Sunday and the beach and dunes are busy and the ice-cream shops (3 within 100m) even busier, with queues lasting into the evening.

A walk around town and the sea wall together with some pottering amounts to the most excitement for today and we spend the evening planning a sail across the Moray Firth to Helmsdale.

The tides are big at the moment and we go aground next to the pontoon at a jaunty angle, but it means we need to be quite precise about leaving here and arriving there.