The Orkney Islands

Duncansby Head - The Top of Scotland

After much deliberation, several changes of mind, consultation with the Harbour Master and great studying of Reeds Almanac and the local Pilot book a decision was made to sail straight across the Pentland Firth, into Scapa Flow and on to Stromness Marina in the Orkney Islands. The Penland Firth is to the North what the Alderney Race is to the South - not to be messed with!

As it happened, either by luck or good judgement, the Pentland Firth was a pussycat - we did motor for about half an hour in order to make the tidal gate, but the sea was calm and all went well.

We were lucky enough in Orkney to be shown around by Adam and Cat who have recently moved there - Orkney is at the forefront of studies into sustainable energy from wind, tide and waves, and both Adam and Cat are very much involved in this industry. Adam is also a Marine Biologist and we have furthered our bird identification to include black guillimots, fulmars and skua and he also found us a porpoise, and told us the difference between porpoises and dolphins. Unfortunately he failed on the Orca front, but you can't have everything!

We were able to show them Scapa Flow from the sea - on a very wet and windless day.

Hoy Sound - on a calm day

Hoy Sound - Wind against Tide

After our failure to see inside a Distillery in Wick, we had another go in the Orkney Islands and have now been to the most northerly distillery in the UK, Highland Park in Kirkwall. Far more successful - we had the full tour and tasting.

We held back at the shopping opportunity, and bought a mere 12 year old Scotch as the older vintages were rather out of the budget!

As you can't go far in Scotland without finding another Castle, we set off on foot with Zilla to see what we could find:

We then set off along the shore to go and look for seals - again we were not disappointed, there were loads of them sunbathing on the rocks.

We spent three days in the Orkney Islands, and could have stayed much longer - it was a fascinating and beautiful place. It did do a spectacular line in rain, but the sun was out for about 50% of the time we were there.

As usual, another fantastic sunset completed our stay.