Stormy Stromness

Navigating around Orkney requires careful attention to weather forecasts and then taking advantage of short windows of opportunity.  We must calculate favourable times to enter the tidal races occurring off headlands and in narrow sounds and also avoid adverse tidal streams around the coast as the flows are pretty strong.  Added to this, we are warned to avoid wind over tide as this steepens the waves in the already confused seas of the races.  Strong winds make everything worse of course..  Quite a lot to allow for!

So on Tuesday 25 June, we saw such an opportunity and motored in light headwinds over the 10 miles from Kirkwall Marina to pick up one of the free visitor's buoys off the southern coast of Rousay, in preparation for an early start the following day to sail through Eynhallow Sound and out to sea round the west coast of Mainland to Stromness.

Moored in Wyre Sound off Rousay

We woke at 5am to a sunny day and a SSW F3 wind and set sail towards Eynhallow Sound to the NW of us. 

Eynhallow Sound between Eynhallow island and Mainland ahead

We entered the confused waters in Eynhallow Sound an hour later and were glad to be shot through at 9 knots and by keeping close to the shore missed the worst of the overfalls.

Eynhallow overfalls

Then, with a fair tide, we headed for Costa Head to make the turn west to traverse around Mainland.

Costa Head

The wind was now SE F4-5, so we reefed the main as we started beating into the wind and were just able to make the course towards Hoy Sound, 10 miles to the south of us.  The weather was bright and sunny but we knew the wind stength would be increasing later on, so we wanted to make our destination in good time.

As we were about to turn into Hoy Sound, we noticed that "Hamnavoe" the ferry from mainland Scotland was also approaching this narrow and shallow passage of water, so we waited out of their way until they had passed by.  Then we motor-sailed after them, keeping close to the turning mark off the entry to the Stromness channel to avoid being carried beyond and into Scarpa Flow by the fierce spring tide.

It was a relief to be safely tied alongside in Stromness Marina at 10:30am.

Stromness Marina

This is where we will stay for the next fortnight or so, as we have tickets to travel back home by ferry-bus-train on the following Monday in order to place our votes in the General Election.

However, that still left us 4 days to enjoy the area and to get the boat clean and tidy, ready to be left alone for a week.

Next day, with the weather rather windy but nice and sunny, we hired bikes and pedalled off to visit the wonders of Neolithic man nearby.  

First we stopped to see the Stones of Stenness: 

One of the Stones of Stenness

And then the Barnhouse Settlement:

Barnhouse - remains of stone-age homes

Then a short pedal onwards to the recently re-opened for this year excavation at the Ness of Brodgar.

 

Ness of Brodgar - Trench P

We joined one of the guided tours given by a very eloquent archaeologist who explained the visible remains in each of the trenches and how ancient man had successively built on top of earlier buildings sometimes remarkably well and sometimes in a sloppy hurry just about every hundred years or so.  This was mostly, it seemed, because their heavy and massively thick stone walls kept subsiding into the softish foundations below :)

Our Ness of Brodgar talk

Next stop was to the fabulous stone circle of the Ring of Brodgar, where we stopped for lunch.

Ring of Brodgar

That evening after we had returned the bicycles, we attended a concert with poetry readings called "Across Northern Seas" in Stromness Town Hall given by the Orkney Camarata orchestra.   This was part of a sequence of classical music, poetry and literary events comprising this year's St Magnus Festival.  Very cultural for us sailor folk!

Friday was rather wet and exceedingly windy W F8 but luckily we were well sheltered in our marina.  We did the laundry and extended our classical experience by attending two 30 min versions of "The Merry Widow" and "Don Giovanni" given by Scottish Opera again as part of the St Magnus Festival.

Stormy weather over Stromness

That evening, with the rain subsided but strong winds still blowing, we took a walk along the coast path to view Hoy Sound in this dramatic weather.

Hoy Sound in weather we would not like to be out in!

On Saturday we visited Stromness Museum where they have an interesting collection of local artefacts including items relating to the Orkney hero and Arctic Explorer Dr John Rae of the Hudson Bay Company.  We've been here twice before but always find something new to enjoy - added to which, this time we took part in the Lego challenge (really aimed at children) and found all 12 Lego models hidden amongst the exhibits :) winning ourselves 2 museum pencils!

Stromness Museum