Unfinished Business Sailing North

 With a good dose of déjà vu I rise at an ungodly hour of the morning, click the kettle on, and turn back to my bed to stuff my sleeping bag into a dry bag. My brother Mark, with the help of crew mates from his sailing club – Martin, Jackie and Christine - have sailed his 30-foot yacht, Kindred Spirit II, up here to Edinburgh so that we are in position to tackle some unfinished business. During May to June 2021, we set off from Blackwater Sailing Club in the south-east and spent 59 days sailing clockwise round the UK, crossing the Thames then heading via the Isles of Scilly, Holyhead, Northern Ireland and then the Scottish Islands to eventually travel down the east coast back to our starting point ion Essex. However, we took a short cut through the Caledonian Canal, which runs from Fort William in the west to Inverness in the east. We therefore feel that we have a date with destiny in the far north, specifically we would like to sail round The Orkney Isles and Cape Wrath. We now have perhaps three weeks in which to tentatively head north in case the weather might allow us to travel where angels, and most sensible sailors, fear to tread. Perhaps you followed our blog posts last year? If not scroll down to find them below.

For this first part of our journey we are sailing with another yacht, with our friends Peter and Nuala on Tami Nori, which is similar to Kindred Spirit but a bit longer. It is a Hunter but 32 foot long rather than 30. And with sailors, size matters. The extra two feet give Peter’s boat a bit more speed and a bit more comfort down below. This morning we are in Port Edgar, just below the three famous bridges that span the Forth estuary. The distinctive old railway bridge, a grim grid of brown girders is still impressive but now competes not only with the original and glorious suspension road bridge but also with the sparkling new Elizabeth II bridge with its beautiful overlapping and seemingly fine trace of cables hung from minimalist tall towers.

We had a gentle sail down the Firth of Forth in 10 to 15 knots punctuated with periods of calm and enjoyed seeing Puffins passing by as well as a brief visit by a large dolphin. One of the interesting historical features of the Firth of Forth is the way that two or three of the large rocky islands have been landscaped to have a profile that resembles a battleship. This was part of the defence system used during the first and second world wars to confuse enemy submarines or perhaps even aeroplanes.

Mark is weather beaten by his trip up the east coast but for me it is great to have a relatively calm and uneventful re-introduction to Kindred Spirit II and the routines and technical bits of sailing. I managed to run round the harbour wall and get some pictures of Tami Nori motoring into the harbour entrance. It is a funny thing with sailing that you have to make an effort to get a shot of your boat, because you are normally sitting on it. I guess I need to invest in a drone and get some shots and video of us under sail.

By chance a friend was visiting Anstruther and she managed to find me on the front so I abandoned the lads and took Nicky for a necessarily brief tour of the Kindred Spirit II, after all it is only 30 foot long, then we went for a drink and enjoyed the sunshine outside a harbourside bar. Anstruther is famous for its chip shop, apparently the best in Western Europe or perhaps it is in the world. However, I have been here three times now and never enjoyed the infamous fish and chips. This is because the chip shop is also noticeable at a world level for the length of its queue. I hate queuing. So, later on we ate in a harbour front pub and it was fine. Bedtime is 10pm because we have an early start, up at 4.15am, to have a quick breakfast then escape from the harbour before the tide goes out. We need to get to Stonehaven within 3 hours of high tide in order to get into a safe overnight berth on the sea wall of the harbour.

We have a few days sailing ahead of us that will become increasingly challenging and it is good to have this initiation before we have to set sail across the fast-flowing Pentland Firth to reach The Orkney Isles. But as this is an adventure, it has an uncertain outcome. Will we complete our unfinished business?