China Girl, UK Circumnavigation - Year 6

From Cromarty to Inverness, CG's winter home was only 17 miles, the wind was very light, we got 10 minutes of sailing in our last trip of the season but essentially it was a motoring day.

Two days in Inverness to put CG to bed for the winter. Lovely weather on the day we arrived so we took the chance to get the sails off and the dinghy deflated and stowed. Good job we did as it then rained for 2 days. Stowing wet sails would have been a real nuisance. It did mean we haven't had a mooch around Inverness yet but we'll go back over the winter.

Photo shows Dunrobin Castle. Very impressive.

Statistics:
1012 miles
208 hours at sea
105 motoring, 99 sailing, these figures never match exactly due to rounding. The motoring hours include all the time spent anchoring, picking up buoys, going in and out of marinas. I'd say more than half of the actually making progress miles were sailed this year.
24 May to 4 September, 8 days at home in July. A few nights in hotels for a change. Shetland by ferry for 4 nights.
Days spent hiding from strong wind - a lot. A bit of car hire.
Days wearing shorts - single figures.
But we made our route except for missing out Shetland and feel we have had a good year. Lot's of very pretty places visited, lovely people, great food, some good beer.

This is the view from CG looking the other way in Cromarty Firth. No so good.

Wick to Cromarty in our passage plan was 55 miles, mostly on a heading of about 220 (SSW). The wind had been south-westerly for days and we didn't fancy a 55 mile beat so we delayed and watched the weather like hawks. Eventually a day of Westerlies, not too strong was forecast so we went for it. We were hoping for west of just north of west winds, around 270 to 290 which would have let us lay the course, just. At first we got around 250, meaning we could make around 200 so not too bad. As the day wore on it veered to allow us to lay the course, but then it dies, bummer. Nevertheless, we did 59 miles in 12 hours and sailed for 8 1/2 so pretty good.

Cromarty is one of the top 5 prettiest places we have visited in Scotland. Well cared for small town, a pleasure to wander around. However, Cromarty Firth on which it sits is a centre for the wind farm and oil platform industries and highly industrialised on the north side. The photo shows the the very pretty view of Cromarty Town from CG at anchor. I'll create another post to show the view looking the other way.

Dunrobin Castle and Castle May are both well worth the visit if you are ever up that way. The latter has been kept just as HM The Queen Mother left it the last time she visited in 2001. The lady that introduced us to the castle had been working there since she was a child, she was probably in her 70s. She didn't say exactly what her position was but she clearly knew HMQM very well and was a close friend rather than just staff. We could have been there all day but she eventually had to stop the anecdotes because there was a queue of others waiting to get in. HMQM hated stuffed heads on the walls, a feature which is prominent in most country houses, particularly in Scotland and especially at Dunrobin Castle where huge numbers of unfortunate deer had crashed into the walls and burst through. So, at Castle May there is one, and it's knitted, it's never been anywhere near a real deer; brilliant!

We also went to John O'Groats that day, it had to be done.

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.

From Calf sound a 2 hour trip on the motor to Whitehall in Papa Sound on the northern end of Stronsay. It was mostly upwind and we couldn't be bothered to tack all the way. Two nights on a visitors buoy and a look around the village.

I originally thought to write 'Two uneventful nights....' and the I remembered! We have a crane to help move the outboard motor from the pushpit of CG to the dinghy. The time-approved successful method of doing this is to attach the outboard to the crane rope before lifting it off the pushpit rail and letting go of it. On this occasion.... Now, when we were taught to sail a looong time ago we were taught to always tie the outboard to the yacht with a safety line before moving it. We've done this hundreds of time over the last 35 years or so of yachting, often wondering why we bother. On this occasion we were really glad we do this! Without that line we would have lost the outboard in about 10m of depth. As I saw the outboard falling past me and into the sea I grabbed the safety line and pulled, reducing the immersion time to about 1 second. A lot of rinsing in fresh water later it started on the third pull. Phew!

I might have mentioned that it's windy in Orkney? Photo shows the lengths mobile home owners have to go to to make sure there home is still there when they get back from work.