With Tim embarked we slipped from Kirkwall Marina on a Saturday morning for the short sail around to Lamb Holm and the Italian Chapel where we intended to anchor for the night.
The Italian Chapel was created by Italian Prisoners of War during WW2 within two military Nissen huts. The Italians were engaged in building the ‘Churchill Barriers’ and asked permission to create their own chapel. It is an incredible work of art and well worth a visit – more here: www.orkney.com/listings/the-italian-chapel
After our visit we decided that the anchorage was rather rolly so rather than have an evening without any rest we decided to weigh anchor and press on southwards to Wick, our first intended port back on the mainland. This was a lovely sail, with a good ‘fetch’ across the Pentland Firth, although by the time we arrived most of Wick’s hostelries and restaurants were closed .. but not Wetherspoons who served a reasonable meal until 11 pm!
We probably didn’t see the best of Wick; it was grey and damp, but it was fascinating to see all the old herring gutting sheds, now redundant, and the new rather incongrous buildings supporting the huge offshore windfarm, Beatrice.
We were keen to keep making progress south but Beatrice rather blocked our way so we headed south westerly down to Helmsdale and then, the following day south easterly towards Fraserburgh.
Helmsdale is a small, quiet fishing port with a number of motor homes parked up by the harbour, a sure sign that we were back on the NC 500, coastal route. We found a meal in a hotel with an extremely raucous bar; the local football team had won!
Fraserburgh is a large and busy fishing port and we were required to check in with the port control and cleared into the harbour amongst some extremely large trawlers, apparently ‘purse seiners’ designed to fish off Iceland. We berthed amongst small shell-fishing boats and despite the very strong fish smell and noise of the fishermen unloading to the nearby market we had a pleasant night in what is clearly a busy working fish port. We enjoyed an excellent breakfast in Donna’s cafe at the fish market and I enjoyed a Lorne for the first time! (It’s a square sausage)
Working our way down the coast we motor-sailed past Aberdeen and the surprisingly busy oil rig support vessels. We wondered if there is renewed activity in the North Sea?
We arrived in Stonehaven, again too late for an evening meal ashore but a couple of pints in The Ship on the harbour side and a good night’s sleep secured against the harbour wall. The following day we walked to Dunnottar Castle, Stonehaven War Memorial and I tried (for the first and only time) a deep-fried Mars Bar; Stonehaven claims to be the home of these delicacies!
This passage down the NE coast of Scotland was beginning to take on a culinary theme, Lorne in Fraserburgh, deep fried Mars Bar in Stonehaven to be followed by an Arbroath Smokie!
We arrived in Arbroath just a few hours after sailing from Stonehaven, past some striking red sandstone cliffs where we watched some brave (or mad) folk ‘tombstoning’ into the waves well below them. In Arbroath the harbourmaster kindly arranged for us to be berthed on a fishing boat pontoon and was adamant that we needed to be out at 0500 the following morning if we wanted to stay afloat!
Arbroath had a pleasant harbour-side, the Smokies were good but the town felt depressed and run-down.
Nigel and Tim had trains south to Edinburgh booked for the following morning so after arriving in Granton, Edinburgh on Thursday evening we had time for a ‘run ashore’ in the city but on our return just before midnight we were rather surprised to find just how deeply we had sunk into the mud!
The following day with Nigel and Tim heading southwards I decided to shift to an alternative berth along the Forth in Port Edgar. We planned to leave Little Scarlet for a week whilst I attended a family wedding and spent a few days with Marianne at the Edinburgh Festival and I really wanted Little Scarlet to remain afloat. The move to Port Edgar provided me the opportunity to pass under the three bridges and remember two years based on-board HMS EDINBURGH in Rosyth.
