An Annoying, Rewarding Voyage!

The Pentland Firth has a fearsome reputation with ferocious tides creating wild, dangerous races ("roosts") which must be avoided, especially in wind over tide conditions.

There was only one small problem with staying for the Wick RNLI party and that was a difficult wind and tide conundrum.  Having ignored the fair winds on offer (which would have made our Wick visit rather brief) we then had a forecast for NE (a beat but able to lay the NE corner of Scotland, Duncansby Head) backing N then NW (bang on the nose).  Meanwhile the tide across the Pentland Firth needed full respect and careful timing, even at neaps, so we couldn't leave when we needed to for the best wind!

At 16:00 hours, we motored out of Wick into a sloppy sea with the wind already heading us and slowly dying.  The tide was also against us, necessary to arrive in the Firth at the right time.  This meant a motor-sail all the way, which I find very annoying.  I'm sure that, in the good old days, we sailed everywhere.  At least, that's how I remember it!  Now the engine is totally essential and puts in a lot of work (7 hours this time).

As we rounded Duncansby Head, the tide remained stubbornly against us.  Eventually I worked out that I had used yesterday's tide time (I must put my reading glasses on to navigate in future) and that we had nearly another hour of adverse tide.  It was lucky that we had some help from the wind to punch through it.  Now I was even more annoyed, mostly with myself, although we probably would have left about the same time anyway, to try and catch the last of the NE wind.  At least the seas settled down into a swirly slight chop.

Rosie in the Rain - Pentland Firth

As dusk fell, the rain came down hard and I found important navigation work to do (under cover), while Rosie steered through the whirlpools.  Dusk became deeper but dark never arrived, which made pilotage into Longhope very easy.

Longhope from our Mooring, 23:00 hrs

The next day we awoke to a brighter new morning in a beautiful place.  We'd made it to the Orkney Isles!

Longhope RNLI Building and Harbour Wall from Visitor's Buoy

Rapport on Visitors Buoy - Longhope

Now all we want is some sunshine and the temperature to rise about 10 degrees.  Surely summer will be here soon?



Comments

  1. Carol HornerJune 25, 2024 at 1:08 AM

    Congratulations on getting to Orkney after such difficult weather. Enjoy the wildness and the big skies. x Carol

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Guinness!

Image
At the moment the weather is always against us - very strong winds in the wrong directions!   So it was a wonderful relief to be able to sample some "proper" (i.e. Irish) Guinness in Carlingford last night after a long, trying week battling the elements. The Antidote In the last post, we were in Dunstaffnage Marina, waiting 2 days for the weather to improve. A Lovely Backdrop It's a good time to show you this special delivery we received from 5yr old Thomas, travelling with his parents on their 21'-9" Drascombe Cruiser, moored just ahead of us on the Caledonian Canal.  This was a thank-you to us after we charged his iPad. "Rapport" by Thomas At 06:15 on Wednesday 14th August, we finally cast off from Dunstaffnage and headed off to catch a fair tide through the maze of islands guarding the route south towards the Irish Sea. We were trying to time our journey to reach the entrance to Cuan Sound, where the fierce tide would start to flow south after 10:30....
Read more

Just In Time!

Image
The 10th of May was very busy for us as we prepared the house to be left and gathered everything we would need for the voyage.  Doug decided to add another thing to our "to-do list" as he had organised the handing over of our dinghy, Tamar Fortune to its new owner :)  We also needed to say goodbye to Cody Sailing Club, who we'd been hosting on their Weir Quay dinghy camp.  Oh and our much-needed Shetland charts arrived at lunchtime! Rapport on her Weir Quay Mooring Suffice to say, we were pretty tired by the time we had loaded everything on board and packed it away that evening.  Rosie had brought so much food that we had to be pretty ingenious to find enough spaces to stow it all!  As Doug said "it was lucky that the kitchen sink had been bolted down"! We'd only recently fitted the sails as we'd had to wait for good weather earlier in the week to have our mast down and the rigging replaced by Allspars in Plymouth, ready for this trip. But we were well r...
Read more

Reaching Home

Image
On the mooring in New Grimsby Sound, the weather was so warm that I even jumped overboard at one point.  I didn't stay in the water for long though, it was more refreshing than I expected. New Grimsby Sound - Fine Weather After two days of sunshine, the weather turned grey and we took the overland route (green on the chart, only advised with at least half-tide and rising!) over to St Mary's for an early start, next morning.  We sadly gave up on the idea of anchoring in The Cove (between St Agnes and Gugh) and the delights of the Turks Head public house due to a forecast of SSE breezes blowing straight into the anchorage. The 60 miles to the Helford River involved light breezes and we motor-sailed all the way.  Our Yanmar engine continues to run smoothly; nearly home!  Tuna fish leapt, as did their prey, trying desperately to escape them.  We were impressed by the tide generated lumpy seas around Lizard Point, which bore no relation to the wind strength. In Helfo...
Read more