5. Selkie Dancer, Wick -
Well here we are at last in Wick after our rest and healing week in Findhorn. It's
amazing how the body mends -
We sailed from Findhorn on Sunday , waving goodbye and hoping I wouldn't make a complete molehusband (ballsup) negotiating the sandbar. Then, for the next seven hours I wanted to be anywhere else but on a boat. I nibbled ginger root and finally succumbed to the chemicals and took stugeron. Later Andy came below because he had noticed someone was missing (glad he did eventually!).
He searched fore and aft before he finally located me slumped by the nav station fast asleep! I don't like that stuff, I felt odder than normal for a while. I perked up when the coast got nearer and we identified Lybster.
It is always a real mystery where the entrances to new harbours are until suddenly they reveal themselves to you. Lybster is a perfect little natural harbour, quiet so quiet. We stayed for a day and visited the Waterline Visitor Centre and North Lands Creative glass works ( www.northlandsglass.com ) met three creative artists in residence, ate delicious crab sandwiches, dined with an air cadet colleague of Andy's, marvelled at the wide streets and the random parking habits of the inhabitants, dodged the rain and hail and finally the next morning met up with an old friend I had lost touch with nearly 30 years ago.
After a brisk three hour sail we are here in Wick, which on first glance is a sad
place. A once thriving bustling herring port. Now the harbour buildings are looking
for a new role. We look forward to exploring tomorrow with the intention of sailing
for Orkney on Thursday as the Gab of May gives way to flaming June -
Missive from Orkney will follow in due course
Jinti and Andy
6. Selkie Dancer -
Hello everyone, Andy is being a bully and won't take me out to dinner here in Westray
until I have written this -
Our stays everywhere always have something of note and Wick was no exception; an
amazing heritage centre crammed full with everything you can imagine and rather disturbingly
with objects we all found familiar. For our stay we were rafted up against a motor
sailing vessel and a long abandoned rather handsome green fishing boat. Sitting
quietly in the cockpit enjoying a cup of tea we were slightly alarmed to be boarded
by a Wick pirate, earring through the eyebrow, high on something and claiming to
be the son of the fishing boat. His colourful language, some of it most recognizable
was entertaining but we didn't know how much to believe. After a cup of tea his
parting words were 'thanks -
Thence to Orkney where Alasdair left us. We need him back. He's stayed the longest this year, brought with him the stiffest winds and there was nothing he could not tell us about bird life. Our entrance to Kirkwall marina in a force 7, after being battered by spray and wind was not helped by Andy having failed to update the chart showing an extension to the harbour wall that was obscuring the entrance. But now at last we have had three consecutive days of sunshine and have seen the Orkneys as they should be seen. The sky a wedgwood blue with soft streaks of white painted across. Low lying islands, sharp cliffs one side with fertile grassy slopes down to the shores. A bit more global warming and they might disappear. The lambs of Stronsay were the fattest we have seen and the explanation is that because it is light for 23 hours a day they are doomed to munch away waiting for the dark and so only cease eating for 1 hour a day!
The most surreal moment yesterday was speaking to Nick in Afghanistan while watching a minke whale circle closer and closer to the boat. Every time we thought we had him in our sights we would hear the blow behind us and whirl around only to watch his tail disappear. There are many video clips and photos of black blobs.
Well I'm off to tart up for my evening meal.
Jinti and Andy
