Mousa to Inverness, Fog and Swinhoe’s Storm Petrel

To resume: our intrepid duo (my beloved and I) are locked in epic struggle with, not only the geography of  The British Isles, but  also with reality, the cosmos and, of course, my Use of English.

Friday 26^th July

The trip from Mousa to Fair Isle involved no more than three challenges:

1. Pull up anchor and leave anchorage without running into a newly-arrived cruise ship moored unobtrusively in the fog.
2. Sail (motor) through the choppy waters off Sumburgh Head (a breeze).
3. Find our way into North Haven (Fair Isle’s harbour) in thick fog …. This wasn’t entirely straightforward but we didn’t hit anything.

Meanwhile a rather odd looking seabird, obviously lost in the fog, had settled on our pushpit. It looked (to me) just like a Common Northern European Storm Petrel apart from the absence of white feathers on its rump … and it had a slightly unusual song.  Anyway, this bird was obviously lost but had miraculously hitched a lift from us in the fog.  Recognising immediately that this was Swinhoe’s Petrel and that it had therefore obviously flown (erroneously) all the way from Japan via South Africa to somewhere near Fair Isle, my beloved cooked it a nutrient-rich broth of sardine goulash laced with brandy. The bird tucked into this dish with obvious relish.

Next day we were delighted to hear that a solitary Swinhoe’s Petrel (now known locally as “Doreen”  .. for obvious reasons) had been spotted, trapped and ringed by expert birders at The Fair Isle Bird Observatory.  We understand that one of these expert birders had heard the unusual call of the bird later that night, having attracted it to his bird trap with the aid of his iPlayer  …on which he had a recording of the birdsong of the male of the species … Anyway, he had caught it, ringed it, and released it within minutes. We understand that he only scientific question left unanswered that evening was why this rare bird smelt of brandy.

Enough of Swinhoe’s Storm Petrel.  We (and it .. Doreen) had made it safely to Fair Isle.  (Much more of this exciting tale may one day be available online, but please don’t hold your breath).

 Fair Isle from the north light house

Saturday 27^th July

We had a nice walk followed by an excellent supper at the Bird Observatory.

We didn’t see Doreen again.

We like Fair Isle.

Sunday 28^th July

We set sail for Kirkwall.

Martin met us at the marina. This was nice.

Monday 29^th July.

Our wedding anniversary.

We visited the dig at Ness of Brodgar. Sir Baldric was also there, making a film.

Kirkwall also has a Lidl, so we went there. We didn’t see Baldric at Lidl.

Tuesday 30^th July

We sailed from Kirkwall to Holm Sound next to a Churchill Barrier on Orkney.

This was a nice sunny sail.  We weren’t racing but we did arrive before Footloose.

Wednesday 31^st July

To Wick.

Crossing from Kirkwall to Wick involves leaving The Orkney Islands and arriving in Scotland.  In between lies the infamous Pentland Firth.  This is the “roughest and most dangerous stretch of water in Europe” *.

We arrived in Wick without a drama.  This was a good thing.

Thursday 1^st August

Wick to Inverness is about 70 miles.  This is “much too far”.

“Passage Planning” is important and I think at this stage I should attempt explain something of this dark art to you, Dear Reader(s) and Ornithologist(s).

Passage Planning can be either broken down into a number of Logical Stages or you can simply set off and generally “see how it all goes”.  The RYA recommends the former method. 

These Logical Stages may be summarised by answering the following questions:

1.                  Where are we now?

2.                  Where are we going?

3.                  Why?

4.                  Why not?

… and so forth … I don’t want to get too technical (and risk upsetting much of the population of Fair Isle and the birding community in general, again .. not to mention most of my newly found readers and followers).

Another method of Passage Planning is the “Footloose method”.  This involves asking the skipper of Footloose, what time his leaving, frowning slightly at the reply, and then after a considered pause, agreeing with his plans.  This method is reliable and simple and avoids all that tedious messing about with tide tables, sextants, charts, maps, and meteorological calculations and simply relies on someone who has a track record of “knowing where their towel is”.

Anyway, having found a weather forecast that wasn’t entirely unsatisfactory we resolved to set off at 0400.  We duly set off at 0500, which was of course just as early.

The trip to Inverness had the following key features:

1.                  It pissed with rain.

2.                  It was windy.

3.                  There were waves.

4.                  It pissed with rain.

Eventually we arrived in Inverness.

Apart from the bus station, we really do like Inverness.

* Martin (personal communication, 2013)