Kirkwall to Wick

I spent yesterday replacing the bolts that hold the toilet to its wooden base. I got replacement bolts and washers in William Shearer. We first went there in 2014 and it hasn't changed. It's a narrow but really long shop with 'departments'. It feels like walking deeper and deeper into a treasure cave. Unfortunately, the hardware department is just pre-packed cheap Chinese stuff these days, but they did have the right dimensions. I should look for stainless at some point.

 Now sitting on the toilet isn't a balancing act.

 We think we will head to mainland Scotland for a week and explore the north east. The weather is changeable. We had thought to go to Lybster tomorrow. We haven't been. We could drop down to the Churchill barriers again today and have two easy days. But last night, the forecast for Thursday didn't look good.

 So we planned the trip to do Kirkwall to Wick in one hit. That's a long way, 55 nm, with Alison's arm still mostly out of commission.

 A 5 am start looked like it would give us the best tides but with a south easterly wind, I was worried the fetch would lead to difficult sea states. Myweather2 is good for that, but only has a few data points in the area. It suggested waves and swells of less than 1/2 m and pitches of 3.5 s. That would be fine. Windy was less optimistic and was showing faster waves around 7s.

 We woke to a fine calm morning and got off bang on 5 am. The weather stayed nice until about 7 am and then clouded over and the visibility was only a couple of miles.

leaving Copinsay to port

 

 We had 15 minutes of weak foul tide through the String south of Shapinsay and then a strong favourable push round to Copinsay. The sea was calm with no overfalls so we went less far off Mull Head and Copinsay than planned and George was at the helm. After that the wind came in and we could motor sail with hand steering.

We tried to keep the cross track error down but at that angle the waves, although not big, were making Robinetta pitch violently and stop dead. Steering a few degrees to port filled the sails better and prevented the resonance. So we put up with the risk of getting nearer the Skerries. We had left enough margin. It wasn't a problem.

Once we were far enough south to make a straight line for Wick south of the Skerries we turned the engine off. But after 30 minutes the wind dropped and we were wallowing in the swell so we motor sailed again the rest of the way. The tide helped Alison hit 6 knots a few times on this leg. It was pushing us west a bit as well. But we were careful near the Skerries. The last hour was foul but only a knot.

Three yachts came into Wick from Kirkwall within 30 minutes. Of course the other two had left much later and probably sailed more of the route while we motor sailed. But we are now within a day sail of Inverness and Portsoy and we can have a holiday.