Kirkwall to Rousay

After a morning of laundry, and wandering round Kirkwall Museum (which was very good) it was time to leave. The weather forecast promised us a gale on Wednesday, but light winds Monday and Tuesday, so we decided that heading for Rousay today made sense. There is a visitor mooring there, and a very good island tour in a minibus, so no worries about catching, or missing, scheduled buses!

We cast off at 1330, when the tides turned in our favour, and were soon sailing out into Kirkwall Bay. The winds were light, but usable for steerage way, and we ghosted along at 2 knots under full sail and the no.1 jib.

Julian through we would just retrace our track along the Eynhallow Sound, then turn towards the Wyre Sound, but I suggested we leave Gairsay to port and sail between that and the west side of Shapinsay, and he decided that was a better idea. I tried programming that route into the chart plotter, but could not make it work, but Julian did. He's better at working the chart plotter than I am!

We had a lovely gentle sail up past Gairsay and Sweyn Holm. Gentle, in that the wind was at most force 2, but it gave us steerage way through the fast tide between Gairsay and Shapinsay, and we touched 5 knots. It was a sideways sail, with the land sliding past the bow, and our track bore no relation to our heading. We could see odd shapes and swirls in the water's surface, but we were never pulled off our heading by the tide, and passed the drying skerries without worry.

Once passed Sweyn Holm the tide stopped helping us, and our speed dropped to 1.5 knots. We freed off the wind, and headed towards Eday, but were still only making 2 knots, and in the wrong direction, so we put the motor on and headed for the visitor mooring in the Wyre Sound off Rousay.

We could see yachts as we approached the ferry dock, so we wondered if the mooring would be taken, but it turns out that there are a number of local yachts on their own moorings, and the visitor one was available. We picked it up without any problems and after getting Robinetta tidied up I cooked. Sausages from the Kirkwall butcher, with tomato, potato, and broccoli. Yumm. We ate in the cockpit, in bright sunshine. It's not warm, but the breeze is gentle, and the sun is wonderful!