Stromness

Stromness, my first visit to the Orkneys which might require more serious sailing to get here.
We were weather tied in Kin Loch bervie for a couple of days. And although the weather wasn’t perfect we had an opportunity to get out and make a pass on cap wrath. In total about a 70 mile day in potentially quite big weather. 2 handed we have to be quite careful so we checked everything on the boat and made a plan we both understood. The firs job was to get the sails up in the protection of the loch and then sail an almost upwind coarse out of the narrow loch into a moderately large swell. Dodging the odd rock.
Nial and and Katherine in Canog in there swede 39 were slightly ahead of us and made it look easy. So we committed to the plan. We were off and the the first few miles needed to be accurate, to position us for a comfortable rounding of cape wrath. About 4 metre swell and 25 knots of breeze, but the boat felt comfortable and Claire helmed solidly round the cape and into the open sea. The tide began to push us east. It was going to be almost dead down wind and that is difficult in a big swell. So we had to add some angle to keep the sails full. We had a dead line of 930pm for Hoy Sound before the tide would be too much to get in. The Orkney islands began to appear on the horizon and it was looking good for schedule. As we pasted the old man of Hoy the light was leaving quickly, but we made it just in time. Wiggle through the harbour and the navigation aids all lit to help us. Canog was there to take our lines as we moored up next to them again. It was festival week end in Stromness and my new Irish friends were keen to get out for as pint or 2. Looks like a late one.
Stromness is a pretty period town with a regular mainland ferry and a solid fishing fleet very atttractive and already noticeably full of wild life, on the edge of scrappy flow it is popular with the diving fraternity. This week end the town was humming with pipe bands and folk music at every turn.Read more