Stromness Marina is large and can accommodate a fair number of yachts of average size. The marina manager tells us he struggles sometimes to place the larger variety of yacht. Most of the pontoon fingers are very slender, however, and instead of cleats, they have small metal hoops, so berthing yachts have to come up with quick bowlines instead of just a winding onto a cleat. So we picked out the hammerhead and berthed there, where the finger is large and has 'real' cleats.

Our neighbour was a single-hander, Dutch, whose beautiful wooden yacht had a problem. He had been sailing out through Hoy Sound when he noticed something amiss with his headsail, and realised the forestay had parted at the top and all that was holding up the sail and the mast was the foresail halyard! He about-turned and fought the tide back into Stromness, where we found him removing his sails, then his boom, then with some help from a crane on the pier, his mast! A day of activity followed where he found a welder to weld the fitting back on top of his wooden mast, and that evening we offered to help him maneouvre his boat while the mast was re-stepped. That process took about an hour, after which he had us aboard for a drink and a chat. The following day he was to be seen setting up his rig again the way he wanted it, and on Friday morning early he left for Stornoway.

Now that we have finally achieved our ambition to sail to Orkney, we plan to have the boat here for a while, to make the most of the summer weather, and the attractions of Orkney, which we both remember from previous visits. First order of the day after arrival was laundry, as the facilities at Kinlochbervie had broken down while we were there, and we replaced our broken fan heater with an infinitely superior one from a local shop in the main street. I had an unfortunate habit of standing on the old one, and its bent fan finally gave up the ghost, and the heating element blew in sympathy. This new one can stand vertically, so there is a smaller footprint, and I am less likely to stand on it! While in the shop I spotted a cheap LW radio with earphones, so I bought one of those as well. We only brought one of the small portable radios from the house, and sometimes we both need one! Anyway, the main car radio on the boat deosn't get 198 LW, so we can't listen to any test matches on it!

I should have said that the pontoon fees here include electricity, so running the fan heater etc is not a problem, on cooler evenings, and during cooler rainy days, for that matter. It is great for the interior of the boat, too, as the fan heater dries out a lot of the inevitable condensation that cooking and breathing cause!

We spent some time yesterday in the Stromness Museum, which I remember from last visits. It has a fascinating display of artefacts from the Arctic explorations of an Orcadian, Dr John Rae, among which is the earliest ever design of inflatable boat, the Haslett boat, made of cloth. The oldest surviving example in the UK is on display. I tried to take a photo but my phone camera wouldn't do it. I'll go back with the Nikon SLR today and try again.

Of the two boats we sailed in loose company with from Kinlochbervie, one is still here, but the other left for Wick the other day.

I spent yesterday trying to work out why the boat computer kept issuing warning noises, and tracked it down to the cigar-lighter adapter for it, which had completely given up the ghost. Mercifully we carry a spare, so I have fitted that and all seems to be working well again. I checked the backup computer at the same time, and it is still in good health too. Hurrah! These are both 13-year-old IBM Thinkpads, both resurrected from the dead on several occasions, and neither of which ever connect to the internet any more. As a result the navigation software all works beautifully, no bugs, no viruses, no trojans, no cookies, just GPS info, AIS info, both on a good navigational chartplotting software, and Navtex info, on Hyperterminal. What more could a navigator want?

This is our fifth day here, and we are beginning to look at forward planning. At the moment we are disinclined to sail to Kirkwall, 38 nautical miles, when we can pop on a bus and get there in no time, 10 land miles, and the bonus is that we can see the countryside as we go along, even get the bus further and look at St Margaret's Hope and the Italian Chapel. So our sailing plans are rather to head for Westray, one of the northern islands in the group, and explore the other islands up there also.

Here's a photo of Ju taken at St Margaret's Hope.

See the photo gallery for more pictures from our Summer Cruise 2011