The Orkneys

The Orkneys are a group of islands that begin 20 miles north of John O'Groats across the notorious Pentland Firth and the tidal race known as The Merry Men of May; there isn't much merry about the place, under certain conditions, the race pushes up standing waves of a size able to sink small vessels! The Orkneys are made up of 9 principal Islands, the largest being named 'Mainland' an island 20 miles north of , well, the Mainland , another rather larger island!!




The Orkneys are quite different from anything we have seen on the west coast of Scotland. Instead of a harsh, rocky, weather beaten landscape the Orkneys are straight out of rural England with gently rolling lush green countryside dotted with many fresh water lakes. Certainly one can see why agricultural Neolithic man settled here so abundantly 5000 years ago. Neolithic Man must have been all over Scotland and England but there are an enormous number of relics here, surviving perhaps because of the generally sparse population and little industrialisation of the landscape. The best know relics are of course stone circles, very abundant in varying sizes all over the islands.







Other discoveries have been the entire remains of a Neolithic village at Scara Brea on Mainland and Maes-Howe, a large burial or ceremonial chamber. In 1930 an entire small village was discovered at Scara Brea after a viscious storm blew all the covering sand away, revealing small stone houses with the stone cots, hearth and even larder shelves still standing exactly as they were left 5000 years ago!

Mike and I are now heading home and leaving the boat in Kirkwall, the capital of the Orkneys. I will be back to finish off the trip on 17 July for two weeks when we will explore the rest of the Orkneys, head another 60 miles north to the Shetlands then back down to the Scottish mainland where I will leave the boat for the winter. Bye for now, see you back in the Orkneys in 3 weeks!

Around Cape Wrath

I have been a bit under the weather since Mike’s fine ‘Tarte poulet’. I have had  a virus I think that left me feeling sick and very weak but 4 days later I am back on my feet and bouncing around again.

We rounded Cape Wrath on Wednesday. Far from being wrathful (is that a word?!) we had a terrific sail in sunshine and 20 knots of wind from behind us. I hate to shatter the illusion of romance and danger of Cape Wrath but the name has nothing to do with the wrath that we understand, it is from the Norse word for ‘round the corner’, so round the corner we went to the north coast of Scotland. It felt like quite a milestone in my adventure.

We have had many goes at fishing without success; the cold start to the year seems to have delayed the mackerel coming in but we did finally have success and landed 4 mackerel and 1 pollock, a white fish similar to cod. Now this was a moment we had been waiting for, not just because we wanted fish for dinner or even the wine to go with them but so that we could try my new toy, a smoker! Out of its new wrapper it came looking very smart and shiny with two glistening mackerel on the grill.

 It is simply a tin box with wood chippings scattered in the base then 2 meths burners put underneath to heat the chips and the tin thus smoking and cooking in one. Unfortunately I had not read the instructions properly (no comments about males please) and had brought paraffin instead of meths; no matter, they both burn don’t they? Well, yes and no. The burners lit beautifully but 10 minutes later there were flames billowing out either side of the smoker and my nice new shiny tin was covered in thick black soot! 

Never mind, it was the fish we were after. Look good? Yes, but they tasted FOUL! Upon investigation, the paraffin heat had been so great that the chips had been burned to cinders thus smoking the fish not with tasty chip smoke but charcoal; they tasted rather like the bottom of the tin looked! Oh well, you live and learn; we will have to catch some more (if only it were that easy), we’ve already got the meths!

From the Cape we headed east to Orkney. It was our first windless day for a while so we motored the 35 miles to Hoy and the famous Old Man of Hoy, a very spectacular rock pillar famous with climbers.

Off to the Norther Hebrides

The sun continues to shine! Grab the opportunity of flat water to send some mug up the mast to do a little job, I kept my feet firmly on the deck whilst Mike braved the heights!

These are the evening we are getting- sunset over Skye

The very light winds meant a motor out to the Northern Hebrides and the southern island of Harris (of  tweed fame). Bikes ashore we did a tour of Harris.
When the sun is out this place is hard to beat; it really could have been the Caribbean (as long as you didn't put your toe in the water!)






If you want to move your sheep around, this is how you do it in the Scottish Isles! And this is the starting place for Harris tweed.







I can't quite get my head around this one. The only special thing about Harris tweed seems to be that it has to be woven on a manually driven loom in the Hebrides with no more than 5 looms per dwelling thus keeping it very much a cottage industry and the manual nature of the weaving is said to keep the quality at its finest. It is still done like this (the loom is driven by two pedals)! How they compete I do not know. The wool can come from anywhere and the garment made anywhere, often in the Far East.









A little further up the coast it was Shanks's pony for a trip into some rather grizzly hills, just to remind us that we are still in Scotland, superlatives not required for that day, only a boot dryer!



Then on towards Stornoway on the Isle of Lewis. On the way we stopped at the Shiant Islands, a spectacular small group of island in the North Minch (the channel between the Hebrides and the mainland). I wasn't feeling well so Mike went ashore on his own; he got more adventure than he bargained on!
We anchored about 400 yards down wind of the beach in a strong breeze and Mike set out to row ashore. I watched him go to make sure he was okay rowing into the strong wind; satisfied he was making good progress I went below and got my head down. Within moments of me going below Mikes paddle broke. He was 100 yards from the beach with a rocky windward shore to his  left; if unable to get to shore his next stop downwind would have been the Scottish mainland! Happily he did manage to get ashore but then had no way of alerting me to his plight; if he set off down wind back to the boat and missed, well, Scotish mainland for him - he sat tight!]




I woke up an hour later, saw Mike on the beach, waved, and to his frustration disappeared down below before he managed to indicate his troubles; he sat back down on the beach to wait. Rather puzzled why he was still sat on the beach some time later I once again stuck my head out and waved. Mike jumped up and waved his 1 1/2 paddles at me - ah, now I could see the problem! A bit of sign language organised the rescue. I was to pull up the anchor, Mike would set off down wind with his single usable paddle and I would pick him up where ever he got to. He was relieved to be back on board!




From Stornoway we did a 45 mile bike ride across Lewis; we bit off rather more than we could chew as we ran into some serious headwinds on the far side of the island. Still, we saw an ancient stone circle, Lewis's answer to Stonehenge and an interesting preserved Crofters village, the houses in which were only abandoned in 1970.

Yesterday we had a cracking sail back to the mainland to be met by this rather strange mountain which we nicknamed the Gherkin, its 3000' tall!








Mike produced a fine culinary delight of Loch Inver tart poulet for dinner.

I am laid pretty low at the moment with whatever got me a couple of days ago coming back with a vengeance. Sadly half of Mikes Loch Inver tarte poulet went back into the sea during the night! Hopefully its just a one day wonder.

Next we are bound for Cape Wrath and the Orkney Islands. Hopefully the cape will keep its wrath to itself!

The Scottish Highlands

 

I am running out of superlatives for this place! Still blessed with blue skies Mike and I set out for a long walk over two steep Munroes (the Scottish name for a mountain greater than 3000’). 

Up the glen, past this delightful waterfall, up the steep slope to the right of the picture and over what are called the 3 horns that you can just see in the wispy cloud then left to the top of the first Munroe, the second was another mile or so to the left out of the picture.

The views from the top were stunning. We sat at the top for half an hour trying to drink it all in. There is something very special about this place. Of all the sbig mountains I have seen around the world, even the Rocky Mountains and the Alps, this is up with the very best of them. Although not as spectacular there is a remoteness and raw beauty about this place that makes it quite different.

To the west the Outer Hebrides, Skye, Rona and Islay and then the fisured west coast hiding dozens of sea lochs.

To the south, east and north just mountains for mile after mile after mile. Ben Nevis just visible between two closer mountains about 30 miles away; not a house or sign of habitation in sight.

 Pure wilderness as far as the eye can see. It made the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end; an emotional place to be.

Sea Eagles

From Loch Hourn, still with no wind but wall to wall blue skies, we motored up the narrow straight between Skye and the mainland up to the Kyle of Loch Alsh (kyle means straight in Gaelic, as in stretch of water between island and mainland) , under the Skye bridge and north into the Sound of Raasay, the route to the northern isles. We had a tip off that there were sea eagles on the spectacular cliffs off Portree, the capital of Skye. We were not disappointed!

The tip off said to hang about until the tourist boats came out, follow them (as they know where the eagles hang out), then sit back and watch the show as a street wise eagle who has seen this boat before comes gliding down from its cliff top perch to pick up out of the sea the mackerel that the boat driver had held above his head then tossed into the water for the eagle. Cheating? Who cares!! After the boat had left we dropped anchor to watch the eagles for half an hour and did see them catching fish of their own.

We had  a lovely afternoon sail to Rona.

On Rona we visited a cave which was used as a church a hundred or so years ago when the island had 170 inhabitants and had a seat in the stone pews! 

The evening saw us anchored in another pretty remote island harbour with the spectacular Couillin mountains in the back ground.

We are getting a little blasé about some of the sea life. We see porpoises ( a small black member of the dolphin family) most times that we sail, usually in twos but they show very little interest in the boat unlike the large bottle nose dolphins which come and play in our bow wave. Seals also pop their heads up all over the place, often in anchorages.

After Rona we sailed back over to the mainland and into Loch Torridon, another beautiful loch surrounded by mountains but some of the mountains are different here, much harsher, dramatic but two or three of them even ugly in their harshness with one looking like a 3000’ slag heap! We spent the afternoon cycling up a long glen between these huge gnarled mountains where we saw  a Golden Eagle (sorry no pis, maybe another time?!)  soaring on a ridge but too far away to see in any detail.

Blue skies and warmth, can this be Scotland?

After a very nice few days at home with Melanie I am back on board with Mike, a friend from Hale and the sun has shone from the moment we hit Scotland. On Saturday 1^st June we flew to Glasgow then had a 5 hour train journey through beautiful highland scenery to Mallaig; this place really is so beautiful – if only the weather were beautiful more often with it!

We woke up to blue sky and oily calm; could this really be the same Scotland I left in rain and wind only a week ago?! We sailed north 10 miles to Loch Nevis (Gaelic for Heaven) and the Knoydart peninsular. It

was warm, dry, calm and absolutely breathtaking. We went for a walk, about 5 hours up a long glen and back over the tops with views of mile after mile of mountains and the snowy top of Ben Nevis in the distance (the dark lump at the left end of the mountains in the picture), a group of deer the only sign of life for miles around.

As we got back to the Loch I met a couple of local to have a chat with but they didn’t want to join us in ‘the remotest pub on mainland Britain’ (only accessible by boat) for a well earned pint.

On Monday we woke to more blue skies and complete calm so motored north 2 hours to Loch Hourn (Hell in Gaelic although the weather can’t have been like this when it was named!). At the head of the loch, 10 miles from the mouth, we wound our way through a very narrow and shallow channel to the anchorage, Mike looking over the front guiding me through the channel, the shallowest part being 4’, thank goodness for a lifting keel!

 We anchored surrounded by 2000’ mountains, trees, waterfalls, streams, its stunning.  We loaded the dinghy and headed ashore for a bike ride for a couple of hours. We past the most beautiful coconut oil smell, some what out of place! We tracked it down to the very striking gorse bushes which look stunning in full flower. 

What a beautiful place and certainly not what could be described as normal biking countryside!

 AND, so far, still no mozzies but it really can’t be long before they appear now the weather has warmed up. The only downer is we have totally failed to catch any fish, Waddy where are you when we need you?! Thank goodness for pasta and Bolognese sauce!

Barra, the Couillins, Cana and back to the mainland

This post is a little out of order, this is the week before I headed for Fort William and home.

The weather seems to be taking a turn for the better. After South Uist and the gale I headed for Barra, the southern most of the inhabited Hebridean Islands. A couple of hours on my bike did a tour of this, the prettiest of the islands I think. The harbour town of Castlebay has this rather splendid castle in the middle of the bay. The coast was rugger but beautiful with many golden sand beaches and turquoise water; it could have been the Caribbean if you ignored the 20 knot breeze and 4 layers of clothing despite the sun!

From Barra back to Skye and an anchorage I had hoped to make earlier but it needs calm weather, something of a rarity, but I got it, special offer, 1 day only! It meant motoring from Barra as there was so little wind but after the last few weeks I din’t mind a bit and it allowed me to spring clean the boat down below on route (sticking my head up from time to time to make sure we didn’t hit anything!)

And how about this for an anchorage?!

This is right at the foot of the 3000’ Couillin Mountains. The pilot book has scare stories of huge gusts of wind coming down the mountain face and ripping out anchors in all but the most settled of conditions!

Just above the anchorage is a fresh water loch that I went up to explore. What a place, black rock, shear faces and the wackiest of rocks showing evidence of its volcanic evolution. For an hour of my walk up the loch I was accompanied by the lovely singing of a Cuckoo which felt quite out of place in such a harsh and rugged place more suited to eagles and perhaps the odd witch than a bird that should have been sat in a blossom tree!

I donned my wet suit and went for a swim with the seals in the anchorage but they were having nothing of it. They are skittish at the best of times, never coming closer than about 20m of the dinghy; I got wet and cold and didn’t see a thing in the water!

From Skye I went back to Canna, a little island next to Rum that I had to pass by a week ago and inhabited by just a handful of hardy farmers.  Blue sky’s once again showed this beautiful place off in its finest attire. A long walk took me out to a windswept headland looking out over the Atlantic to Barra in the distance. This makes all the wind and rain worth while; an enchanting place.

On the way back over to the mainland, mixed with my sunshine was hit by a massive heavy hail storm, literally out of the blue which, once passed, made a gateway of this full rainbow for me to pass through to get to the mainland. The din caused by the large hail stones hitting the aluminium mast and boom was something to behold; imagine a bunch of 5 year olds having broken into the pan cupboard and sit bashing the living daylights out of them with serving spoons and you've just about got it!

I am now in Mallaig which is where I will leave the boat for a week and head home to see Melanie which I am much looking forward to; and a stable bed after 4 weeks on the sea!

I am going via Fort William where I want to stop for the day and cycle up part of the Caledonian Canal; from the west coast at Fort William up to Loch Ness, about half way along the great Scottish divide that, with a little man made help, allows boats and small ships to pass from the west coast to the east without suffering the attentions of Cape Wrath, the northern tip of Scotland, where we must pass to get to our next goal of the Shetland and Orkney Islands. Cape Wrath? we’ve go to be asking for it heading for a place with a name like that. What’s wrong with the Med?!

Ben Nevis and the Caledonian Canal

I am now a bit out of order. I left the boat in Mallaig on Friday 24 May to head home for a week via Fort William. Internet connection has been a big problem so I could not write up the last week, a spectacular few days spend between the Outer and Inner Hebrides including a trip to the infamous Couillins. I cannot do it now as I have left the photos on the boat, I will do it upon my return to the boat.

I had an uncomfortable blowy 24 hours in Mallaig but got all the jobs done and hopped on a 6am train for Fort William with a fine forecast. Was I really going to see the top of Ben Nevis? It was a wonderful train journey, 4 hours through the most stunning Highland scenery of mountains and lochs, much of it following the West Highland Way.

When I got to Fort William 'The Ben' still had his head in the cloud so with a clear day forcast for the following day I hired a bike and set off up the Caledonian Canal in beautiful sunshine. What a place! AND the midges still hadn't cottoned on to the fact it was May (they had obviously decided that one swallow does not make a spring!)

This is the Ben Nevis range (note the snow which came down on the miserable Thursday I had in Mallaig - the midges must also have clocked the temperature!)


The canal, built in the early 1800's by Thomas Telford to get shipping from one side of Scotland to the other without going round the much feared Cape Wrath (see blog in a few weeks time!!) starts with a series of  8 locks lifting small ships and boats up from the west coast sea loch to Loch Lochy, up again into Loch Ness then down into the sea again at Inverness.



Once up the locks and after 4 miles of canal the waterway opens up into Loch Lochy.














There were splendid views of Ben Nevis; note the shear (dark) north (left) side of Ben Nevis - more later.











Saturday dawned with a beautiful clear sky, I am told one of only about 10 days a year that the Ben has its head out of the clouds - I'd earned this,  I was on for Ben Nevis! Ben Nevis is the largest mountain in the British Isles. After a beautiful start from the valley floor the walk itself is a bit of a grind, a 4400' climb from almost sea level, much of it snaking up the south face walking mostly on scree.

The view from the top however are something different altogether! I reached the snow line at about 3500' and the views of the surrounding mountains started to open up, sadly a camera does not do justice.










On the summit you soon sea why this is such a dangerous mountain which does claim several lives each year. The 'path' (completely covered in a staggering 1.5 metres of snow) goes within 6' of a 500' shear drop that you could see on the earlier photo, look behind me!

The walk was 3 hours up and 2 down of actual walking time with a very nice snooze half way down next to a pretty lake at lunchtime.

I am now off home to spend a few days with my long suffering wife which I am looking forward to very much. I am heading back up on Saturday 1 June with Mike to set off for the second half of the west coast of Scotland.