Slowing Down

We have been gently pushing ourselves in the last week as getting to the Orkneys started to look possible. We have had lots of 12 hour passages and early starts. None of it has seemed too stressful (except perhaps Rattray Head) and we haven't ignored the land either, lots of nice chats with locals and other crews we met along the way and visits to some great little museums.

Now we are in Stromness. We got here around lunchtime after an uneventful motor through Scapa Flow. There are lots of sunken obstructions to be skirted and the tides are strong, even at neaps, but easily manageable. Alison hugged the coast as it was a little boring (not a word we have used much) in the centre of the channel on a dull and wet day. Stromness Marina is only manned for an hour in the morning and an hour in the evening so we took a spare berth without talking to anyone. The cleats are staples here like they are at Suffolk Yacht Harbour so it was nice to have a Dutch sailor take our lines as we came in.

The gate code and wifi key are written on the inside of the gate and the heads are in the ro-ro terminal so it all works very well as an unmanned facility. We picked up some leaflets at the terminal and then went for a snooze. We want to stay in Orkney for a while and make the most of the visit. We will look for a weather window to leave once we have had our fill.

I spotted a folk event on in Kirkwall so we showered, met the harbour master and agreed to get fuel and pay in the morning and did some blogging before catching the bus.

We got some good views from the bus and arrived in Kirkwall with time to spare for the 10 pm performance. We had a little look at the outsides of St Magnus cathedral and the Bishop's and Earl's Palaces. The venue staff said the event would go on until 1 am but when I phoned to book a taxi the latest we could get was 11:30 pm. Oh well, we would get to see the first set.

The band are fine young musicians but their joint education at what is now the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland came across in their set, which was very sweet and controlled. I prefer a few more raw edges and a bit more energy. The bar area was full of people chatting loudly to hear themselves over the music and the band were not able to take control. It's possible that the second set got a bit more lively but we were not the first people to leave.

The taxi driver was an incomer to the isles, only having lived here for 30 years. He has digitised over 11,000 tracks from his vinyl collection and likes Led Zeppelin, The Carpenters and Metallica, amongst others. He and his wife are off to Vancouver next month to spend some time with their First Nation friends there. He spent his redundancy money on solar panels and gets up to £750 a quarter from the grid. People are amazing. We could see clearly in the Dim, even with thick cloud cover. We were in bed by midnight.

We have had a lie in this morning.and we need to decide if the weather is good enough to hire bikes to see Skara Brae.

The forecast is dull and showery all week. I might get up at 5 am tomorrow, it is the only time there is any sun in the forecast.