Bay of Skaill to Eynhallow Sound

It is 11 nm from Skaill Bay to the entrance to Eynhallow Sound. Our reading of the Admiralty Tidal Stream Atlas was that the ebb would still be strong until around 6 hours after high water Dover, which was 11:07 UTC. So leaving Skaill bay at noon meant we needed to keep our average speed down to less than 2 knots. The wind was pretty much on the nose and we beat gently up the coast watching the birdlife and looking at the cliffs. One of the landmarks is the Kitchener memorial. Kitchener died, along with over 640 sailors and officers when HMS Hampshire was sunk by the Imperial German Navy. Only Kitchener is named on the memorial and little mention is made of the rest.

We were so successful at procrastinating that by the time we got to Birsay Bay we thought we ought to get a move on. It was hard to tell what the wind and tide would be doing along the north side of Mainland - we might be able to to reach or we might need to tack - the tide might be weakly or strongly against us. As the ebb starts, a back eddy runs in Birsay Bay and we beat in to try to pick it up. We certainly got out of any south going tide but getting in was so difficult I put the engine on and we motored for one tack.

The north end of Birsay Bay is formed by the Brough of Birsay, a tidal island with "the remains of a busy complex of Pictish, Norse and later settlement". Our explorer tickets include entry. It is possible we should have tried anchoring here, instead of at Skaill and gone ashore to visit, but we didn't think of it when making our passage plan.

As we tacked out of the bay Alison spotted another ring of pot or net marker buoys. We couldn't tell if they were just crails or another net so we gybed round and went back outside them. I wanted to give the island a good offing as we had no idea what the conditions would be like on the other side where the onshore wind might kick up a nasty sea near the cliffs. So we tacked well out. On the helm I could see nothing now but sea and sky and it felt like I was sailing to Labrador or Iceland. In fact I had a nice line northward around the island.

Once I tacked again I could see we had cleared the island with a good margin and I could hold the course along the cliffs. The tide wasn't bad but doing the sums told us we had used up our dawdling allowance so we motor sailed to keep the speed up. There was a swell, but nothing to worry about.



The cliffs between Birsay and Costa Head have even more spectacular sea caves than those south of Birsay.

We got to Eynhallow Sound right on time.