Stromness to Bay of Skaill

The alarm went at 4 and I was up straight away. Julian was a bit slower, but he remembered we hadn't paid yet, so I wrote a cheque and took it to the honesty box. We had the engine on by 0425 and headed straight out of the marina. The wind was light, but enough for us to broad reach out through Hoy Sound at 5 knots. A bit of tide assist there!

Once we changed course along the coast we were down to 2 knots, and ended up putting the motor on for a while when our speed went down to half a knot! We weren't in a hurry though, and as soon as there was more wind the engine went off again. We beat slowly along the coast, admiring the cliff scenery and the fishing birds, until our last tack brought us in to Skaill Bay on a really nice line.

There was a tiny float on the surface, with a line running off it. I saw it just before we ran over it and turned away immediately. I was not sure if we had crossed it or not, but Robinetta (under sail) never faltered and I headed out of the bay with Julian quickly getting the jib sorted out.

We needed to stop at the Bay of Skaill. It is the only anchorage we knew about on the west coast of Orkney Mainland, and unless we anchored and waited for several hours we would be much too early to enter Eynhallow Sound. There would be lots of tide against us, and overfalls.... We had to wait them out, and the Bay of Skaill was the place.

We dropped the sails and motored cautiously in, staying much closer to the south side of the bay than I'd planned. I found the float again, and cleared it, but it obviously marked one corner of a box enclosing the centre of the bay. There was another line further in, marked with a different and even smaller float but we avoided that and dropped the anchor.

We'd ended up closer to the south side of the bay than I wanted, and there was a little swell, but the anchor set well. Julian made porridge for breakfast, then we went back to bed for a couple of hours. When we woke up I looked astern, and saw a line of rocks that had not been there before, and were closer to us than I liked. It was only 1130, and we should really wait for at least another hour before leaving, but we were on a falling tide, and had to stay on this side of he bay because of the buoyed line.

We pulled in a little chain to take us further from the rocks, and had a cup of tea, but then decided to head out early, and sail slowly up to the entrance to Eynhallow sound. The buoy with its lines had drifted even closer to the south of the bay, and I had to avoid it again rather than just follow our track out, but by noon we were clear of the Bay of Skaill, and raising sail.