A day in Kirkwall

 We have been in Kirkwall several times before, and did not feel like doing the tourist thing, so today was spent on boat and person maintenance. I finally got round to getting a hair cut!

We had been asked to move Robinetta to a finger berth if we decided to stay another day, and as we wanted to go to the fuel berth anyway this was hardly a problem. We ended up taking 45 litres of diesel (of which 15 went into our spare fuel cans). This meant there had only been about 10 litres left in our fuel tanks when we reached Kirkwall, not enough for a full day's motoring. Once we were in our new berth we hooked up our water hose to replenish the other liquid essential for ship board life. 

Just before we launched Tim Loftus had to cut away some of the wood he had used to strengthen the hole through the bulwarks for the bowsprit. He had not realised that we needed to be able to reeve the bowsprit on a regular basis, so the tolerances for getting it in and out were too tight. This happened just before the launch and today Julian reminded me I needed to paint the bare wood there, and on the piece he had cut to stop the staysail car from pulling off its track. This was a very minor bit of painting, and easy to do.

Meanwhile Julian had the much more complicated job of bolting the toilet bowl securely onto its base. Luckily he was able to buy all the bits he needed to do the job. I was annoyed with myself when I saw how corroded the bolts that had failed where. The toilet assembly had been out of Robinetta all winter, and we had even painted the wooden base. I really should have checked the bolts at that point.

I had a look at the weather, and alerted Julian to the fact that Thursday looked rather too windy for our current levels of sailing fitness, so that evening we did some detailed planning for tomorrow's trip south.

Mainland Scotland here we come.