So when does the fun start?

18Jun13

With the rocky sandstone crags eerily clad in mist and the locals well into their daily tasks we slipped lines at 07h30 to clear space for the ferry and headed off for Orkney...

...hindsight can be a wonderful thing and so can having an up-to-date weather forecast. With no mobile signal and no VHF reception we were working from a forecast acquired the previous day enroute from Brae. Despite there being a neap tide and a low tidal coefficient a big sea soon built up. Wind 'with' tide, as we had, is supposed to be less of a beast but not this time. Sea state was supposed to be moderate at worst [1.25m-2.5m] we had rough [2.5m-4.0m] and more. By the time we had cleared Foula, with no space to return, we decided our best option was to keep going on our planned route which was safer than battling against it all to retreat back north; there were no obstacles in our path so we carried on. The wind was not particulary strong but the sea state was mixed and difficult to deal with. Most of the big breaking waves we could anticipate and ride over but as usual there was the odd random set which was larger and more challenging, launching us up in the air to land down with jets of water shooting up through the scuppers (cockpit drains) giving us a good drenching. We could only make safe progress on one tack, the other tack would allow breaking waves on the beam of the boat which could knock us over, so we had to sail a little further than desired away from our destination. However, the wind and waves decreased as predicted (this time) on the approach to Orkney and we were able to safely tack and correct our earlier loss of mileage, thankfully before we reached South America.

Our bonus five hours gained by visiting Foula were all lost as our 11 hour passage turned into a 16 hour pounding. Approaching Pierowall [Westray] in the ambient light of midnight all the pontoons were occupied, we also noticed the presence of the notorious 25m German ketch 'Moby Dick' renowned for rafting onto smaller boats and being a general nuisance, so we grabbed a visitor's mooring buoy just outside the harbour, thanked Arbalest for looking after us and then Zebedee said, 'Time for bed.'