Long Hope towards Upper Scapa

I had wanted to stay in Long Hope and head east around South Ronaldsay to Kirkwall on Thursday but it became increasingly clear that this was a bad idea. The east wind was freezing cold and blowing straight into Long Hope. It made going ashore to the pub unwise and made the mooring very uncomfortable. We realised we would have wind over tide on a very long fetch onshore wind around the east of the Orkneys.

We considered going to St Mary's tomorrow and then up to Upper Scapa where we could walk into Kirkwall.

But as the evening wore on we got less and less happy with our mooring. Alison suggested going to Upper Scapa tonight where there might be more protection from the east wind. I thought that was a great idea. We got going really quickly, sailing off the mooring at 1900 and beating out of Long Hope. Alison thought going back the way we came would be easier but I wanted to try to get between Fara and Flotta.

The wind was dead on the nose so we motored through and then tried to point at Upper Scapa. We could manage it in the gusts but in the lulls we were pointing more at the Barrel of Butter, a well marked isolated skerry in the middle of Scapa Flow. The wind went up and down and our speed with it. By 9 pm we were still more than 5 nm from Upper Scapa - I could see the steeple of St Magnus Catherdral - and down to 2.5 knots.

The Barrel of Butter

It was harder and harder to leave the Barrel of Butter to port so we left it to starboard and freed off the wind a bit. Once past, I looked at the chart and spotted that Houton Bay was less than 2 nm away. It is tiny but is sheltered from all directions, having an island almost plugging the entrance. It was an easy decision to make and once we turned west we realised what a good one it was. Our speed increased and broad reaching took the teeth out of the wind too and we felt instantly warmer.

Before long we were dropping the sails and heading in to the apparently wide entrance. It is actually very narrow under the water! The western side of the bay is the only sensible place to anchor, the centre and east being where the fishermen and the ferry to Hoy are. It slopes steeply so it can be quite hard to decide where to drop the hook. The anchor chain got stuck somewhere in the locker and we put out what we could. It is clean sand with some kelp and the old fishermans anchor set hard. Once we were knew we were holding I went down and found the problem. I thought it would be some links twisted and fouling the exit tube but the chain had got jammed in the frame of the locker. I pulled it free. We were about 2 hours after high water and it was really calm so we decided putting more chain out could wait until the morning. We would have ample time to let more out before HW.

Houton Bay doesn't have much to offer in facilities, but it is a very fine sheltered anchorage.