Two night watches and one day watch later we arrived early morning – still in the dark – at Newcastle. With Storm Benjamin lurking threateningly only a short distance to the south it was felt sensible to wait it out. The entrance to Royal Quays Marina is a lock and not a lot wider than the Tecla, so it took some fairly masterful boat handling to get in, up against...
Once in Kirkwall we really had to do the tourist thing and two minibuses and tour guides were duly arranged to pick us up at 9am. We then did a whirlwind tour of mainland Orkney – the home for three-quarters of the population of the Orkneys. The name Mainland sounds a slightly weird one but is in fact a corruption of the Old Norse name for the island – Meginland...
This morning we did the shortest passage so far – about a mile and a half across to an anchorage just off Egilsay. The Zodiac was hoisted into the water and we all headed ashore to walk a mile or so to St.Magnus’s Church. Between 1103 and 1117 Orkney was ruled by two Viking Earls – Magnus Erlendsson and Hakon Paulsson. In 1115 Paulsson’s men started some...
I stuck my head out first thing to try and get a better sense of where we had anchored. I got little sense at all! With low cloud and drizzle, the view was little better than it had been in the dark the previous evening. With a strong breeze we hoisted the mizzen and staysail as soon as the anchor was up and headed off south towards Rousay. This took us on a...
Another textbook springing-off demonstration saw us heading off again just after 9am. This time our destination was slightly uncertain. The wind, infuriatingly, had gone round to the SE and so, once clear of Sumburgh Head, the skipper tried to see if we could make Fair Isle. This is an island around 20 miles south of Sumburgh Head and, if possible, he wanted to stop...
With the weather improving we left Suðuroy in the morning of October 17th to head across to the Shetland Islands. The passage was about 170 miles and the hope was to head across at the same time as a small band of anti-cyclonic wind so that we could avoid using the engine. We knew that this would probably mean some early motor-sailing until the breeze kicked in and...
Off again …. After breakfast we headed south and we left in style. Despite being moored close to an Icelandic trawler in front of us, the skipper held on a spring, hoisted the mizzen, staysail and main (with the peak scandalised) and forced the staysail aback to push the bow off. With the spring released, the boat moved majestically off under full sail. The main was...
Moving on …. As we need to keep doing …. Today was a fairly short move down to Tórshavn, the capital of the Faroes and for me, a second visit as we had already had a morning there on the Smyril ferry. The weather sort of played ball with a bit of a sail, but half motor-sailing and half sailing. Still, it was only a 20mile leg and so didn’t take long – by lunchtime we...
One good thing about storms is that they generally go through quite quickly, but despite that we got held up for a couple of days on the Vestmannaeyjar islands. This was because while the storm did go through quite quickly, it was followed by a support act the next day. So, with 30-40 knots forecast the skipper decided to wait another day to set off – a decision we...
Heimaey is the largest island in the Vestmannaeyjar archipelago, and the largest and most populated island off the Icelandic coast. It is just 4 nautical miles off the south coast of Iceland, but feels quite a bit further. Depending how you define an island, there are 18 islands and about 30 rock stacks and skerries in the archiopelago. Heimaey is the only populated...