Across the Pentland Firth

Sometimes things just go to plan. Mostly that happens when you spend a long time getting the plan right!

Julian worked out how to get across to Orkney, and asked the Wick harbour master for his advice too. Malcolm Bremner was very happy to help, and while his timings were more-or-less as Julian expected he added little snippets of info that were not in the Clyde Cruising club instructions. Stay close (1/4 - 1/2 miles) to Noss head, then head directly NNW to Scirza Head, and run parallel to the coast to Duncansby Head about 1 to 1.5 miles off. This lets you take full advantage of the back-eddy that runs towards Duncansby head from the south when the flood is still running south farther out. His timing was a little earlier too - bang on HW Dover, not Duncansby Head slack. Most important was his instruction "don't be late". He also said "if you do as I say, you can wear your slippers, you won't get your feet wet".

We left Wick at 0445, passing the old lifeboat station the Wick Society now use as a store. There was just enough wind to help us, so we raised the sails but after a while it dropped to almost nothing. The tide was stronger against us than Julian had expected and we dropped to 2 knots at one point. The engine was running flat out to keep us up to 3.5 knots when we needed over 4 knots to make the tidal gate.

 It was 7 nm to Scirza Head where we expected to get some favourable tide. It seemed to take forever. Then we started to speed up. We hadn't reached the head yet and Julian was worried the tide had turned early. I reassured him it was the start of the back eddy. The speed increased and increased and we hit 7 knots at one point but were making 6 reliably and passed the 'castle' rock south of Duncansby Head at 0755, bang on time!

The journey across the Firth was unbelievably simple after that. Flat sea, no wind, and back down to 3 knots. We did indeed keep dry feet! We had sunshine though! Two thirds of the way across the tide started to run, and we were no longer pointing where we were going as our speed picked up to 5 knots.

Julian put the mifi on and we had internet all the way across. It allowed us to track the shipping on AIS and report our position to friends watching. (Maybe not on a Sunday morning).

We closed with the coast of South Ronaldsay to have a good look, and headed up into Scapa Flow doing 5 knots with the engine in tick over. It needed a rest from the full revs up to this point!