Coming from the North West you have to sail between the islands that make up the Orkneys in order to reach Kirkwall. We sailed down keeping the island of Westray on our port side and the isle of Shapinsay to starboard. The body of water that we travelled through was called, most appropriately the Westry Firth. When we sail through these sort of areas I prefer to be on the bridge in case something unusual happens. It does most of the time. The currents can run strongly here and it only needs one Sunday sailor to be in the way for things to get complicated. A bit of moral support from the captain then makes the life of the navigator a lot easier. Further to the South is the Pentland Firth where the currents can run up to 7 or 8 knots or even more. When we went through there last time, on our way to Scrabster, we went through at the end of the Flood tide and we still had five knots with us. That was the END of the flood tide.

Here in the Westry Firth it ran about 3 knots at places but mostly no more than 1.5 knots and in line with our courses, so it only made us go a little bit faster. The unusual things came with two issues. When we passed Westry we saw what looked liked a giant airplane motor hanging above water. Coming closer it turned out to be a new way of generating electricity. When, later on, we asked the pilot in Kirkwall about it, the answer was that this was a test set up and eventually this turbine would be sitting on the sea bed and generating electricity by using the strong currents running through the Firth. Made sense, it just looked very strange to see it hanging there on poles. A giant air plane motor rotor with nothing attached to it. The next thing was a group of four yellow buoys sitting just off the centre of the fairway. Nothing noted in the chart and nothing mentioned in the Notices to Mariners that we receive each week nor the NavTex messages; no information at all. While we were wondering what it was, a work launch came speeding out and sat right on top of the buoy closest to us. All very peculiar. They could have called us, as we were the only cruise ship within a 100 miles, but no communication came and they must have hoped that we would not run over the buoy if we saw the boat. Well we saw the buoys well ahead of time but in theory you could ask yourself, if in worse weather, we would not have seen the buoy, would we have seen the work launch????. Might have hit both then…………. The buoys had something to do with a construction project that involved a big crane on a barge and these were its mooring buoys. Never found out what this project was all about.

Kirkland is located on an island with the name Mainland; I assume called that way as it is the largest of the Orkney Islands. On the North side is Kirkwall bay where we were heading for and to the South is the bay of Scapa Flow, well known from the world wars. In the mean time I was worrying about the wind. 20 to 25 knots of wind is not pleasant for the Prinsendam regardless whether we are docking or tendering. The anchorage in Kirkwall Bay is about a mile from the port and that means that the wind has sufficient water surface to blow over to create a short and nasty chop which is not good for a pleasant tender ride. Docking with that sort of wind is completely dependent on the angle of the wind onto the ship. Full abeam and there is not a chance in the world I can control that big funnel. However luck was with me today. The dock was available; its heading was 123o and the direction of the wind was around 125 to 130o so nearly on the bow. I was in business. As long as I carefully kept the wind straight on the bow, I could slowly come sideways to the dock. Everybody must have some luck in life and all the guests had it today, I did not have to cancel Kirkwall. We were nicely docked ahead of time and with the sun shining all day, it was a sunny but breezy day. A real summer day for the Orkneys.

During the day the wind increased to 35 knots at times, which is near gale force, but it remained from the same direction. With such a wind, we could never have operated a tender service. For departure this wind only helped. It being just a little bit on the starboard bow meant that I could practice my “blow away maneuver” and so we did. The local pilot was quite impressed with how well the Prinsendam was able to execute this maneuver. He agreed that there was a “wee bit of wind blowing and that it caused a wee bit of drift”. Be aware when a Scotsman talks about a “wee bit”. It normally means the opposite.

So with that “wee bit of wind” we blew out of Kirkwall and set sail for our next port of call, Rosyth, entry port for Edinburgh. The “wee bit of wind” is supposed to die down tonight which is good. As South Easterly winds blow straight onto the dock in Rosyth that would mean tugboats. Good news is that it will be another sunny day.