China Girl, UK Circumnavigation - Year 6

It's time to leave Orkney and head south back to mainland Scotland on our way to our winter base in Inverness. Landfall on the mainland will be Wick. Much thought and head scratching has gone in to this trip: timing, distance, tides and mostly the sodding weather. Perm all these. From where we are on Stronsay it's about 65 miles which is a long way so we need to find a stopover. But all the decent windows in the howling winds are only a day long. So we took a window of winds under 20 kt to get to Deer Sound, knocking about 20 miles off the distance, but knowing that we would we hiding in there for 2 days while winds up to 40 kts came through.

We found some shelter and anchored but still noted winds up to 34 kts (Force 7). We had all 50 m of chain plus about 20 m of rope out to fix us to the seabed in about 5 m depth. A very bumpy 2 nights and we daren't get off the boat, but the anchor held. So within a week we've experienced the largest waves we ever sailed in and the strongest winds we've ever anchored in.

Having survived, we took the weather window for the 44 mile trip to Wick. Eight hours, about half and half sailing and motoring. Full sails, reefed, sails away to motor, quite a busy trip but easily accomplished. So here we are in Wick until Thursday 29th for a good look around. Tomorrow we hire a car for 2 days for a trundle north to John O'Groats and Castle May and south to Dunrobin Castle.

Photo shows the view across Wick Harbour from the hill above the town.