Westray, Orkney

Last Tuesday we were ready for a change after the metropolis of Kirkwall and all those stones. So, sails up and off to the “Northern Isles”. After trying to anchor in Fersness Bay (too much swell), we settled for the mooring in a bend between Eday and Calf of Eday.

A gorgeous spot: 4 houses ashore, nicely out of the (enormous) tidal stream and lovely and quiet. We stayed here for 2 nights, and because of the now properly “Scottish” weather, with rain, clouds and cold (11 degrees), we didn’t bother going ashore. There’s not much more to do than walk around in the rain anyway.

Then, partly thanks to some WhatsApping with Anje, we got itchy feet and sailed on to Westray, the “most populated” of the northern islands. I quickly phoned what turned out to be the “real harbour” master of Pierowall (as opposed to the marina harbour master). The harbour looked too full for us, so we anchored just off the village. Then a WhatsApp from harbour master Tom: wave back! Turned out we were anchored right in front of his house…

Tom said we could come in later, but that was a bit optimistic, because the actual marina people had a booking for an English boat. Never mind, no problem, the next day there was room at the inn after all. Just as well, because it was going to blow hard over the weekend, around 30 knots with gusts of 35-40. Funny how something that gives you a lovely downwind sail makes for a pretty breezy time in harbour!

Toddled off with Ella to the village a mile down the road. In about an hour we’d visited pretty much all the shops, boutiques, restaurants, cafés, museums and so on. In other words: we checked out the 2 village shops, the little café in typical British wooden style, the tiny museum and the hotel/restaurant, which is still firmly in the 1970s. The art gallery we only admired through the shop window. Later it turned out there was also a fish shop in a container, another mile further on.

In the museum, Ella thankfully pointed out the most important find ever made here, the “Westray Wife”. It’s the only artefact found here that depicts a human being. The lady turns out to be about 3 centimetres tall, so no wonder I nearly walked right past her.

Otherwise the harbour was busy with sailors, with 2 more English boats next to us (El Contenta and Kealoha V) and 1 German one (Selkie). Friday evening with Kealoha V turned into a very jolly one… This morning the last of them left, and now we’re on our own among the workboats and fishing boats, which immediately reclaimed their favourite spots that the yachts had been occupying. Oops, a Dutch boat (Miura) that we already met in Amble is just coming in.

The harbour masters (Tom for the whole harbour and Jacob for the marina) just can’t stop talking about the “new ferry” fiasco. Back home, Doeksen isn’t doing so badly after all. Here the council in Kirkwall picked out a new ferry in Norway that is far too unstable and handles poorly. The first few days it was still being repaired, on Sunday it was there but it was blowing too hard, and yesterday and today we didn’t fancy going along to Papay. Sorry, we can’t see everything, but at least now we can watch the crew struggling with the thing. It really is far too big a beast, 22m, tough-looking and pretty quick, but give it the tiniest bit of throttle and wham, it lurches forward.

By the way, a word about all the island names here. Most of them end in “ay”, Old Norse for island. That’s the “øy” of modern Norwegian and the “ø” of Danish. But here it turns out you pronounce it as “ie”, “ee” or “e”. Which island gets which pronunciation is something you just have to learn. And “Papa Westray” is pronounced like “Pappy”. The a, w, e, s, t and r they just drop…

Tomorrow we head further north. We’ll see whether we can get into Fair Isle, otherwise straight on to Shetland. Not much wind is forecast, so we’ll see how it goes.