Sitting on my living-room floor surrounded by tide tables, pilot books, and almanacs, one part of my upcoming voyage around Britain began to excite me more than the rest. I had never been to Orkney before; and although in purely cartographical terms it’s not all that far from the mainland, it seemed intriguingly remote.

It’s full of history and prehistory, and is beautiful to boot. I couldn’t wait to see it.

But we had to get there first. And that involves crossing one of the most fearsome stretches of water in the British Isles: the Pentland Firth.

Goldfinch, our Bénéteau Océanis 36cc, had left her home port of Ipswich in mid-May, and by the middle of June she had arrived in Wick. We spent three nights there, waiting for the weather to be just right for the crossing to Orkney.

Crossing the Pentland Firth

Between the mainland of Britain and the Isles of Orkney lies the Pentland Firth. As the tide coming in from the vast Atlantic Ocean tries to sweep eastwards to the North Sea, it finds itself squeezed into a gap only six miles across.

The result is that this area has the second-fastest tidal streams in the world, reaching up to 16 knots at times. Dangerous tidal races spring up, known as ‘roosts’, like the one known as the ‘Merry Men of Mey’.

This might sound like a comic troupe of Morris dancers, but in breaking seas it can be dangerous. The Orkney and Shetland Sailing Directions, published by the Clyde Cruising Club, goes out of its way to make sure skippers don’t take this passage lightly: it has dire warnings in red ink.

The Firth is not especially wide, so getting across it safely is largely a matter of timing. Pick the right day for the weather, and the right hour for the tide.

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The weather forecasts suggested that the right day would be soon, so now I had to work out the best time to leave. As usual, the most trustworthy advice came from the locals.

The harbourmaster at Wick gave me a clear and believable instruction: be off Duncansby Head when it’s high water at Wick. It’s something like 10 miles from Wick to Duncansby Head, so it took us the best part of two hours, motoring in a half-hearted wind.

As we passed Duncansby Head we could see the northern shore of Scotland stretching away to port. A few miles to the west was John O’Groats, and beyond that Dunnet Head, the northernmost point of mainland Britain.

But our destination was further north than either of those. By now the true wind was astern, and the apparent wind almost nonexistent.

The face of the sea was calm; but even in these benign conditions it had a confused quality. Beneath the surface, we could feel Goldfinch’s keel being nudged forcefully in all directions by the contrary currents.

It took about an hour to cross the Pentland Firth. We passed between the southern tip of South Ronaldsay and the small island of Swona, and then up through Hoxa Sound and into Scapa Flow.

Scapa Flow

Scapa Flow is effectively an inland sea, with only a few channels connecting it to the outside ocean. On a map of the British Isles it looks like just a speck in the middle of the smudge that represents the Orkneys, but up close it is surprisingly big: around eight miles from north to south at the widest point, and 12 miles across.

It was in these sheltered waters that the Royal Navy had its base during the two World Wars, and it was here that the Germans deliberately sank their fleet in 1919, fearing that the ships would be seized by the British. Surrounding Scapa Flow are the islands themselves: mostly green, fairly low-lying land, with gentle hills.

To the west, the towering peaks of Hoy are very prominent, rising far higher than the rest of the landscape. As we motored across towards Stromness, the water was silky smooth, with barely a breath of wind to disturb it.

It was a magical moment. By 2030 we were in the marina at Stromness, all fast.

It had been a good day. The biggest island in Orkney is called, perhaps confusingly, Mainland (here, the landmass of Britain is referred to disparagingly as the ‘Sooth Island’).

We spent a few days on the Orkney Mainland, visiting some of the historic and prehistoric sites that had so excited me when I was planning this voyage. The Stones of Stenness are a mysterious group of standing stones dating back to Neolithic times.

From them, it is just a short walk to the even more impressive Ring of Brodgar, an awe-inspiring circle of stones that is older than Stonehenge.

On the Mainland

In the west of the island is Skara Brae, a Neolithic village that was discovered in the 1850s when a huge storm swept away much of the earth that had covered it for centuries. Like the Ring of Brodgar, it is older than both the Pyramid of Giza and Stonehenge.

Its great attraction is that the houses still contain much of the original stone furniture, and it is easy to see how they were laid out: a central fireplace, a stone ‘dresser’ which seems to have been used for storing or displaying possessions, and stone beds. As with the other Neolithic monuments of Orkney, there are many unanswered questions.

How did these people get here (presumably they regularly crossed the Pentland Firth in open boats), how did they live, and why did they leave? Archaeologists have been able to infer some of the answers, but there are many tantalising gaps in our knowledge.

The overwhelming impression of the place is that these people, who lived so many thousands of years ago, were not all that different from us. They worked for a living, played, and decorated their houses and bodies.

More recent history has also left its mark on Orkney. To the south and east, some of the smaller islands are connected to the mainland by the Churchill Barriers – massive barricades made of huge blocks of concrete that were put down during the Second World War to help protect the fleet anchored in Scapa Flow.

Situated on Lamb Holm is the Italian Chapel built by prisoners of war who were kept on the island to help with the construction of the barriers. The Italian Chapel is made out of nothing more than a pair of Nissen huts, but the men who built it were not content just to have a room in which to hold their church services.

The Italian prisoners of war decorated the Chapel with exquisite artistry, painting the inside to look like coloured tiles, carved stone, and stained glass, eventually creating a unique place of beauty in their exile.

To Westray

After a few days on the mainland, we left Stromness, bound for Westray. This passage took us around the western side of Orkney.

At 1319 on 20 June, I wrote in the logbook that we had reached exactly 59° north. This is a record for Goldfinch, and the furthest north I have ever sailed.

It was good to be at sea again. Once we were out of the Sound, almost the whole passage to Westray was under sail, with a fine Force 4 on the beam and a flat sea – perfect conditions.

The wind gradually picked up during the day, and by the time we arrived in Pierowall harbour on Westray that evening, it had become a bit feisty. Goldfinch has a lot of windage up front, and in any kind of brisk cross-breeze, her bow will get blown around willy-nilly as soon as you slow down to safe manoeuvring speed, even with bow thrusters blaring.

Parking the boat in the little marina was really quite challenging, although we managed to tuck her between two yachts without mishap. Pierowall is in a substantial bay with a half-moon shaped beach of pale sand.

In the implausibly sunny weather we were having, the sea was a deep sapphire blue that would make the Mediterranean jealous.

The next day we took a taxi up to Noup Head on the north-west of Westray. From the lighthouse, there is a spectacular walk along the coast.

The dramatic red stone cliffs are home to hundreds of seabirds such as guillemots, terns, gannets, and puffins. It was a fine breezy day, and the whole lot of them were having a grand time wheeling about in the wind.

To Kirkwall

Our plan had been to return to Stromness so that we could leave Goldfinch there in readiness for the next leg of the circumnavigation in July. But when we got up that morning, the day was grey and blowy.

We chatted to the locals and told them our intentions, and they were unanimously of the opinion that it would be a mistake to go to Stromness that day. The passage takes you outside of the Orkney archipelago, with nothing to the west of you but open ocean.

It had been flat and serene on our way up, but by now the swell had built up, and by all accounts, our journey would have been extremely uncomfortable. A better bet, we were told, was to go to Kirkwall instead.

This passage would take us down the middle of the islands, where we might experience some uncomfortable waves as the fast tide met the wind, but it would probably be bearable. It’s always a good idea to listen to the locals.

By the time we left Pierowall that afternoon, some hours later than our original plan the wind had moderated, and for most of the passage we had almost ideal sailing conditions. Some low-lying clouds clung to the islands and occasionally the visibility was poor, but much of the time the sun shone.

We had felt a bit of trepidation when setting out, with rumours of roosts and bone-shaking confused seas, but in the event we had a peaceful passage.

Surprise encounter

On the way we passed between the small islands of Faray and Eday. As we sailed through the sound, Bryan saw something that made him exclaim loudly: a tall black fin breaking the water, followed closely by another.

It was a pair of orcas. They were swimming in the same direction as Goldfinch, and only a few boat-lengths away, close enough for us to see quite clearly the black and white patterns on their sleek bodies. ‘Awesome’ is a much overused word these days, but it’s the only way to describe the sight of these beautiful, powerful creatures.

When we left Goldfinch in the last week of June, safely tucked up in Kirkwall, there was a northerly gale blowing in. The boat was rocking, the fenders were squeaking as they took the weight between hull and pontoon, and we had about seven lines securing her to the shore. During our time in Orkney we had had impossibly good weather, but now it was quite unpleasant, and we were all glad not to be at sea.

In July, Goldfinch continued her voyage round Britain, and we took our leave of Orkney, with Sir Peter Maxwell Davies’ Farewell to Stromness playing on the boat’s sound system. It was an amazing trip and I very much hope to return one day.

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