Circumnavigation of The British Isles 2011: RR4 Northern Isles and East coast of UK

We are now back in Ipswich sorting out the boat before disappearing off to the beach hut at Calshot for our “summer holiday”. We took 103 days to cruise around Great Britain, during which time we covered over 2500 miles and stayed in 44 different ports or anchorages. While we did and saw a lot, we could in the time only obtain an overview of our country. Every excuse for going back and looking at an area in more depth.

This Round Robin covers the last quarter of our Circumnavigation. It includes our cruise in the Shetlands and Orkneys, together with our return trip to Ipswich down the east coasts of Scotland and England, the latter being an opportunity to meet up with friends along that coast.

The Orkney and Shetland Islands are two distinct compact groups to the north of Scotland. They are 75 miles apart, with Fair Isle in between. The Orkneys, at 20 miles off the mainland, are the closer. Each group of islands is comprised of a principal island (each imaginatively called Mainland Island!) and a series of smaller inhabited islands with a fringe of many small islets, some no more than a rock, others inhabited by a handful of people. All the inhabited islands are connected by ferry, air or causeways.

Unlike in the islands off the west coast of Scotland and Eire, which were colonised at an early stage by the Celts, Gaelic is not the indigenous language. Until the late 15th century these islands were part of the Norse empire, being only 200 miles away from Norway. Although the islanders struggle to maintain their Nordic language, their English is interspersed with many Celtic and Nordic words and phrases and many names and customs reflect the islands’ mixed culture. The islanders see themselves not as Scottish, but as Orcadian or Shetlander. It is certainly a harsh environment, albeit very attractive. One tour guide said that the islands have two seasons: June/July and winter. Income from the oil industry, fish farming, fishing, agriculture, tourism and related industries has, however, enabled the islanders to develop an excellent infrastructure and lifestyle.

We reached the ShetIand Islands after an overnight sail from Stornoway and a day in Fair Isle [see RR3]. Overnight sails in daylight at this latitude are a doddle. The Lonely Planet Guide describes the Shetlands as “one of the top regions in the world to visit”, saying: “this is the last untamed corner of the UK”. At 60°N it is unarguably the remotest part of the UK and being so far north enjoys nearly 24 hours of daylight a day in June. We pulled into Lerwick, the capital and by far the largest town. We were surrounded by Norwegians who had sailed over on a rally from Bergen. The Swedes and Dutch were also well represented. As a consequence, our Visitor’s Book for the Shetlands is mostly “in foreign”! There were only three other British boats in Lerwick, including Tutak II, a Fisher 25, with solo sailor Bill Brannan. For those sailors reading this, you may be interested in the fact that he flew an old-style Pilot Flag (see photo below) – because he could!

Frans and Janny from Holland, whom we met and sailed in company with from Fair Isle to Lerwick, had been to the Faeroes and inspired us to make the 200-mile detour to see them. Unfortunately, the 5-day weather window shut on us when halfway there and rather than get storm-bound we returned to Lerwick. On the way back the lifeboat passed us at speed on the way to search for a fisherman who was lost overboard – the second in a month.

I had been invited to Headline Publishing’s 25th Birthday Celebrations in London some time before our trip began. Murphy’s Law dictated that I was as far away from London as I could be when the day approached! I therefore left Mike on the boat soon after we arrived in Lerwick and travelled by overnight ferry to Aberdeen and train to London, staying overnight with Will and Lesley. The party was great fun and I was able to meet some contacts from Headline’s early days, as well as putting faces to many new names. During my absence Mike serviced the engine and effected a number of minor repairs. He appears, however, to have found ample time to socialise. Both he and Bill looked somewhat fragile the morning I got back.

On my return to Shetland we hired a car and toured Mainland island, passing the broch on Mousa island – an Iron Age fort said to be the best-preserved in Europe; visited Jarlshof, a Stone Age village which had been perfectly preserved under a sand dune until only a hundred years ago and looked round Scalloway, the original capital of the Shetlands, with its monument to the Shetland Bus – the small fishing boats that travelled to and from Norway during WWII carrying agents and refugees. We thought the tombolo at St Ninian’s was the most beautiful feature of our tour. This 2-mile white sandbar links the small islet of St Ninian’s to Mainland island and is flanked by two sparkling blue bays. It is the largest tombolo in Europe. Another striking feature of the islands, which are mainly covered with peat bogs and rough moorland, are the brightly coloured wooden houses which have been built in recent years with oil money. Shetland ponies were, of course, everywhere.

The wind direction was such that we decided to call back into Fair Isle on our way south to the Orkneys. Coming through the narrow entrance to the island’s small harbour we saw two of the Swedish boats we had met in Lerwick. They were dressed overall with their signal flags flying. I asked the reason and Stig and Brigit said that Magnus, their son, was marrying Catharina in three hours’ time. At this stage the bride looked very relaxed sitting in the cockpit with rollers in her hair and carpet slippers on her feet! Her wedding dress had been allocated its own cabin on the couple’s smart Dufour 45! We were delighted to be unexpectedly invited to the ceremony in Fair Isle’s Methodist chapel and, since they had commandeered the only ‘taxi’ on the isle, they lent us their bikes to get there. After a 3-mile uphill ride we arrived in time, but somewhat out of breath! Almost a case of “One Wedding and Two Funerals”… There were only ten of us in the church. I videoed the ceremony for the family and gave them a DVD when they returned from their reception dinner (held in one of the three B&Bs on the isle). Catharina was particularly thrilled because her parents had been unable to make the journey from Sweden. In the evening we joined them for a glass of celebratory champagne.

The only other incident of note was that the next day, while we were below deck repairing our steering (again), a pod of Orca killer whales poked their heads into the harbour – and, unlike everyone else on the island, we missed seeing them!

We left early next morning for the Orkneys since the wind had turned in the right direction. With the notoriously fierce tides that run between the islands, our arrival at Kirkwall, the capital, had to be timed for slack water. Our Swedish friends, who arrived slightly before us, had discovered en route that the fibreglass structure around the rudder stock of one of their boats had developed serious cracks – not good news! As it happened there was a retired fibreglass expert in Kirkwall who was persuaded to repair it at short notice – otherwise their family honeymoon cruise might have been spoiled.

Kirkwall is comprised of grey stone and slate, apart from the magnificent cathedral of St Magnus which is built of red granite and dominates the city. It contains a memorial to John Rae, a local Orcadian and an Arctic explorer who learnt to live and travel like the Inuit and was the man who discovered the tragic fate of the Franklin Expedition, and also the last link in the North West Passage which bears his name.

Kirkwall also boasts the most northerly Scottish whisky distillery – Highland Park – which of course we visited. Their 50-year-old malt retails at £10,000 per bottle! Not surprisingly, samples of this vintage were not issued and we made do with purchasing the 15 year old! Half a mile further south, the Scapa distillery, unlike most others with their smart visitors’ centres, guides and tours, has a sign saying bluntly: NO VISITORS. The city also has an intriguing Wireless Museum, which among many interesting exhibits has the WW2 spy’s radio suitcase. It looked to be a two-man lift!

Howard Versey, whom we’ve known since he was a boy, is now married to Susan, a native Orcadian and also a doctor like Howard. By chance they were visiting Susan’s parents with their new baby daughter Rose and they all came to see us in Kirkwall. Howard promptly accepted our offer of joining us on the sail round to Stromness the next day. Again, we spent some time ensuring that we timed the tides right on this passage since both the exit from Kirkwall and entry into Stromness are said to be horrific in the wrong conditions.

On arrival in the small marina, Bill, who meanwhile had been cruising out to the Skerries in the Shetlands, took our lines. Almost adjacent to our berth we saw Little Else whose owners Liz and Ju we’d last met in Lagos in Portugal in December 2009. On our way into Stromness we had overtaken a fishing boat tending its pots. It subsequently berthed close to us and the skipper was happy to sell us three lobsters and a large brown crab which we had for supper with Bill. We had to get on to the internet for instructions on killing and cooking the shellfish. The lobster was excellent; the crab a disaster. I need more practice!

As in other places we hired a car for a day which enabled us to visit the main attractions on Mainland island.   Initially we went to see the Barrier islands which are linked by the Churchill causeways. These causeways were built during the war to protect Allied shipping following the sinking of the Royal Oak in Scapa Flow by a German U-boat. The Italian POWs who built the causeways also constructed a chapel out of two Nissan huts, which they transformed into a most remarkable and beautiful place of worship using materials ‘acquired’ – often with the help of their British guards.

The leader of an Irish demolition team, commissioned after the war to raze to the ground everything connected with the POW camp, refused to flatten the chapel on the grounds that he did not want to be answerable to God on Judgement Day for such an act of desecration. The Chapel is now maintained by the local community and is a major tourist attraction as well as remaining in regular use for services including weddings.

We also visited Skara Brae (another perfectly preserved Stone Age Village) and the Ring of Brodgar, an Orcadian Stonehenge. Driving around we were struck by how cultivated the Orkneys are, compared with the rugged landscape of the Shetlands. There are fields of crops and pasture, herds of beef cattle and flocks of sheep, with occasional patches of heather and gorse. Due to the almost constant wind, the Orkneys, like the Shetlands, are also treeless.

From Stromness we sailed across Scapa Flow where the German fleet was scuttled in 1919 and spent a night berthed on a fishing boat inside Longhope harbour on Hoy. This put us in a good position to catch a favourable tide through the Pentland Firth – the fastest tidal race in the UK. In light winds and with the correct tide it proved a non-event and given the conditions and the good progress we were making we sailed on for 37 hours to Eyemouth, the most southern port on the east coast of Scotland.

We stopped at Eyemouth to meet old friends Shelagh and Joe who joined us for lunch in the very attractive fishing harbour. Shelagh has been a friend since we were both eight years old. The fishing fleet is still very active although in 1881 it was decimated by a sudden storm at sea when 129 fishermen from the town perished. Apart from fishing, the town’s other claim to fame is its smuggling history which is commemorated in a dedicated “smuggling” museum. Gunsgreen House, an 18th century mansion overlooking the harbour, was owned by John Nisbet – by day a respectable merchant, by night a smuggling “Don”. The house is riddled with secret passages and storage spaces.

Colin and Joan McGinnis on their boat Eilidh (Gaelic for Helen!) rafted alongside us and we joined up for a very enjoyable evening in our cockpit in hot sun, prior to a pot-luck supper.

From Eyemouth it took only four hours with the tide to reach Holy Island where we anchored in a very protected bay, although with the very strong tides we had to put out two anchors in opposing directions to cope with changes in the tidal streams. The bay was full of inquisitive seals who appeared to be interested in everything we did. We went ashore by dinghy to visit Lindisfarne where St Aidan (after whom the boys’ school in Harrogate is named) was abbot. The island is a major centre of Christian pilgrimage – and tourism. It is connected to the Northumberland coast by a causeway which is submerged at high tide.

From Holy Island it was a very short sail to the Farne Islands where we anchored in The Kettle at Inner Farne – a circular enclosed bay with one small entrance, rather like what we imagine a coral atoll would be. At high tide the rim of the surrounding reef was almost submerged but at low tide it acted as a protective wall. Inner Farne is one of two islands that can be visited and tourist boats came and went throughout the day. From 5 p.m., however, we had the anchorage to ourselves – along with several million seabirds. Unusually, the weather was baking hot and the wind very light – otherwise it would not have been possible to stay overnight.

Our next port of call was Amble, an old mining port which has now developed a fishing and tourist industry. The marina and boatyard are, somewhat unusually these days, still privately owned and are clearly making a serious attempt to compete. Soon after our arrival we were joined by Alan and Lynn, friends whom we first met eleven years ago in the Caribbean, and who have recently moved their boat up to Amble from the Solent. They told us that the marina costs are 50% less than they were paying down south. It was good to see them again. After Friday supper on our boat, we regrouped on Saturday morning on theirs and enjoyed one of Lynn’s legendary “Full English” breakfasts! Unfortunately, it poured with rain all day so we did not explore the surrounding countryside as planned. Nevertheless it turned out to be an exciting morning… An old wooden boat two along from their berth had a gas explosion which blew it almost apart! Mike had walked past the boat a couple of minutes beforehand on his way to the marina office and was therefore lucky to miss being hit by the blast. Alan was first on the scene and helped the 82-year-old live-aboard owner, who miraculously was alive and standing, out of the wreckage. We are now even more careful with gas management on board!

We left Amble very early next morning to catch the tide south to Whitby. With a head wind, we struggled to get there and only just made it in time to meet our friends Carol and Bill Tetlow, who had come over from the Dales. They very kindly took us to the famous restaurant The Magpie for a fish supper.

The next day we went up to Fortunes’ smokehouse to buy some of their famous kippers. On the way we bought crabs for lunch and Mike lashed out on some Whitby jet jewellery for me. Ben and Christine Mayo, old family friends who live nearby, joined us for lunch. We alternated courses between the cockpit in hot sun and the boat’s saloon in torrential downpours.

The passage from Whitby to Scarborough was another simple sail with the tide. We are members of the Scarborough Yacht Club, having been introduced to it by Robin and Sue Scholes, who instructed us at night school in navigation twenty-odd years ago. They had just won the Club’s annual North Sea Race to Holland but unfortunately had returned home a few days earlier. Several members recognised Island Drifter even though we haven’t been back to Scarborough for ten years. Adjacent to us in the marina was the Princess Matilda, a large sea-going barge belonging to the actor Timothy Spall and his wife Shane. They are going round Britain, with a camera man, producing a television documentary about their trip. We gather from people who’ve seen the first instalment that it is very good.

James and Kate Denby, old friends from Harrogate who had not seen Island Drifter before, came over for lunch, and we had another day of yo-yoing between hot sun and heavy showers. Kate, who has been of invaluable help while we’ve been away, brought three months’ post in a very large carrier bag!

Since Mike had to get back to Harrogate for a medical appointment we decided to go up the Humber to Hull marina, from where it was easy to catch a train via Leeds. I went back as well to sort out a few things at the house. The Humber is a vast river, much wider than the Thames, and was very busy with shipping. It’s 26 miles from the mouth up to Hull and there are another 25 miles of navigable river beyond the Humber Bridge. The tidal streams are extremely strong so there is no choice but to “go with the flow”. We were very impressed with the regeneration of the city which was badly damaged in WWII and is now also recovering from the decline of its fishing fleet and related industry. The marina is well placed in the city centre and is only five minutes walk from the railway station.

We left with the ebb tide at, for once, a civilised hour and made it into the open sea within three hours. We sailed hard overnight in strong following winds and a lumpy sea in order to catch the tide into Lowestoft and to avoid the worst of the north-westerly gale which was chasing us. After arriving at dawn in the Royal Norfolk & Suffolk Yacht Club’s marina, with its impressive Grade 2 listed club house, we crashed out until lunchtime.

Thereafter we tested the Club’s bar and showers before having a look round the town – a good old-fashioned British seaside resort. Steve and Helen Grover, who built, lived on and sailed Island Drifter to the Mediterranean and back, joined us for supper. After ten years they said it was very weird revisiting what had clearly been a major project in their lives. We had a great evening and it was good to catch up with them.

Another civilised start time of 11 a.m. saw us leave Lowestoft for Ipswich, with a fresh following wind and a favourable tide! After tying up in Ipswich Haven Marina on Sunday evening, we celebrated our successful Circumnavigation of the British Isles with the bottle of champagne which Steve and Helen had very kindly given us for this purpose.