Jean says: When we first planned to go round Cape Wrath to Stromness, I'd assumed that we could just sail out the other side and give The Pentland Firth and Duncansby Head a big wide birth, and not be troubled by any of it. On closer scrutiny of the rather large scaled cargo ship sized chart that we had, I could see what I thought looked like bridges between the islands on the East side of the Scapa Flow. I thought it a bit odd that they hadn't put the heights above sea level, but assumed that it was bound to be high enough for most boats, otherwise, how would anyone ever leave to go East? Maybe the bridge heights would be on a more detailed chart. Well, we eventually discovered that they weren't bridges, but low barriers. Churchill had bricked it all up during the war because of the German torpedo threat (in fact Italian POWs built it along with an Italian chapel which we went to see, but that's another story). We were aghast that the only way out was via - guess what - The Pentland Firth.
We had two choices now, neither of which were in the original plan. One was to stay in the Orkneys forever, and the other was to face the watery equivalent of running the gauntlet. After a bit more research, I discovered that it is possible to travel through the Pentland Firth and live, but in the right conditions. The right conditions being a neap tide, wind of less then a force four, no swell to speak of, and presenting yourself at a certain point just to the East side of The Merry Men of Mey, at a certain time and following a certain route. The Merry Men of Mey is not a jolly band of travelling minstrels, it is in fact a band of turbulent water, sometimes manifesting itself as a standing wave, that when it's at its peak of horribleness no ship of any size would want to be near. It's frankly a bit misleading and they should have called it The Marauding Maniacs of Mey, which would give people a better idea of what they would be letting themselves in for. Anyway, today we had the neap tide, hit the jackpot with the winds, managed to get the timing right, and sailed through one of the most notorious stretches of water on the British Coast with the ease of a dolphin. All we can say is hallelujah, and that we'll devote our lives to helping others from this day forth.
We're now in Wick which is full of extremely friendly helpful people.