Another leg commences! This one takes us from the top of the mainland of Scotland – Scrabster to the Orkney Islands, hopefully the Shetland Islands too and then head south and begin the journey back down the East Coast, ending at Edinburgh on 9th September. So we have 2 weeks to complete this latest adventure.
As Mick is leaving his car here as he visits us for a few days I used him as a taxi service to take me took me into Thurso. This was a last ditch attempt to get my Canon Camera going again as I went in search of a camera shop. My efforts so far in repairing my camera are that I have cleaned the contacts, have replaced – the internal battery, the main battery, AND the memory card and have now bought a new charger to see if its because of that.
Im afraid to tell you that this last effort has now failed, and now have to accept my camera is out of action and needs severe and professional help! I’m now going through the stages of grief. I have been through the denial stage, then the anger, I am now in the stage of depression!
I think it can only be a lovely sail which can make the difference for me now and it just so happens that we have woken to glorious weather once more ready to set out! We were very sad to leave Scrabster and its generator behind, as you can imagine, and headed north towards the Orkney Islands.
We had a beautiful sail and strangely, were taught by our new skipper about chocolate – I’m not sure if it is advertising or not, but Tank says that “Cadburys dairy milk is very tasty” Its something about compasses and deviation apparently! We were learning how to do running fixes – a method of working out where you are without use of a GPS.
We did this as we passed by a fabulously famous landmark – The Old Man of Hoy! We have seen it at long last – we last saw his cousin Stoer round the other side of the North Scotland Coast and were looking forward to seeing him too! He looked glorious as we approached.
The Old Man of Hoy
As for my stage of depression, seeing the Old Man helped a little, but it was also helped by the fact I have just managed to fix my other other camera.
I came on this trip with 3 cameras, and I have been down to just one – the least favourite of my 3. Remember I told you I dropped my 2nd favourite camera down a toilet on the Isle of Man? Well, I have bought a new battery for it (as apparently, they don’t like being dipped down a loo!) and its worked! I can’t promise the same standard of photography I have provided during the first half of this trip, but I will continue to take what I can with my
We have all enjoyed Tanks 1st day with us. He has a lovely sense of humour, is great at teaching and obviously enjoys sailing (as all the instructors from SWMT do) There is also something reassuring by having a member of an RNLI crew looking after us all. Tank comes from Salcombe and works on the life boat there, he also plays rugby for his town and is so proud of his Devonish background that he is flying the Devon flag on the port side of the RBE!
The Orkneys are absolutely stunning!
For the second time I brought the boat onto the pontoon at Stromness (with just a little help from Tank)
Avoiding a ferry on the way into the marina at Stromness
Stromness
View from our boat in Stromness
Whilst the boys set about cleaning the boat, I began preparing dinner. I normally call this dish Chicken Stew, but we have decided that we are in future going to name our food after the places we visit – so tonight readers we had Stromness Hot Pot! I do hope we manage to get a little more creative in our dish naming in future!
Feeding time at the zoo!
As our appetiser, we listened to the weather forecast provided by the Shetland Coastguard. He sounds one of the most relaxed and laid back coastguard officers so far, and must be far too used to providing bad news and the words “severe gales” seemed to trip off his tongue with ease. We are planning to move ahead of this weather tomorrow by sneaking round the Orkney Islands round to Kirkwall and to sit out the storm for a day there ready to head towards the relaxed coastguard up in the Shetlands on Sunday.
After dinner games were provided by our new skipper Tank as he steered stationery around a chart on the table and we had to imagine its ever changing nature, from a vessel with restricted maneuverability to one under anchor with varying lengths and answer the challenges he presented us from the lights and shapes and how to avoid a pen and pencil colliding in international waters on our table! It may sound a little strange, but its a great way of learning!
We considered visiting the local hostelry to check out a Friday night in Stromness (does that sound like a song to you?) but we were so exhausted by our efforts today we took to our beds early – goodnight!
