We are now in Ipswich, having
sailed here, via the Shetland Islands and the east coast of Scotland and
England, from Bergen in Norway (from where we sent our last Post, RR8).
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| Circuit Completed! Chart © OCC/Maggie Nelson | |
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When we left Bergen, our Finnish neighbours, with whom
we had got on well, kindly got up early and broke away from our raft to let us
out from the quay where we were moored.
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| Boats moored alongside the Bryggen, in the heart of Bergen |
As is our custom before longer
passages, we toasted Neptune before we left through the Hjeltefjord. We are not superstitious but there is no
point at sea in taking any unnecessary risks!
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| Pouring a libation to Neptune |
Once past the island of Sotra and
through the skjægård, we headed west into the open sea.
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| Chart Plotter's view of our exit from Norway |
We
encountered, as forecast, a stiff Force 6 wind from the north. There was also a storm to the
north of us, which resulted in an unusual (for a Force 6) three-metre swell on
our beam. As a consequence, it was a
fairly wet and bumpy sail west for the 200 miles to Lerwick in the Shetland Islands.
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| Crossing the North Sea from Bergen to Lerwick |
By now we had only one good
battery (out of four) capable of starting the engine, so the Hydrovane self
steering had to earn its keep, since the alternatives would have been to use our electronic autohelm and risk overworking the good battery,
or – perish the thought! – having to hand steer in the rain!
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| The Hydrovane earning its keep |
Our route west along the 60th
parallel happened by chance to avoid the complications of negotiating the oil
fields that were north and south of us.
In total, the 220-mile passage took 36 hours.
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| Keeping the log |
We like Lerwick, the capital of
Shetland. Even so, in the late evening,
and in a strong wind and pouring rain, the town with its grey granite buildings
did look very bleak. There were only half a dozen cruising boats in the
harbour. We initially rafted on a French boat, bought some very good fish and
chips for supper, had a shower and then a pint in the friendly Lerwick
Boating Club, before collapsing into bed. Next morning we awoke late. The sun
was out and everything looked much better.
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| Lerwick Visitors' Harbour |
We could not fail immediately to
notice a most unusual small, bright red steel boat the size of a Wayfarer on
the quay. Scary Mary had been
built and was being sailed by Andrew Baldwin.
His objective was to sail it from London to Iceland and then, having put
four wheels on it, drive it off-road around the country. Daft, but…
A TV company was following his progress and there were camcorders fixed
around the boat, including on deck, to capture “fly on the wall” moments. We wished him good luck – what else could we
do? He clearly needed it. See: www.walkingboat.com
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| Andrew Baldwin & Scary Mary setting out from Lerwick for Iceland |
The evening after our arrival we
invited our French neighbour Joel Breton round for what turned out to be a most
enjoyable evening. He is sailing, on
his own, to the Lofoten Islands in the north of Norway. We agreed to keep in touch since a cruise
further north does have its attractions – and we are interested to hear how he
gets on.
We delayed our departure from
Shetland by a day in order to catch a bus over to Scalloway, on the other side
of Mainland, to see the new museum opened in May this year by the Prime
Minister of Norway, Jens Stoltenberg.
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| The New Scalloway Museum, Shetland |
We particularly wanted to see the
section covering the Shetland Bus – the fleet of Norwegian fishing boats which
effectively ran a “bus service” between Shetland and Norway in WW2. They carried messages and stores as well as
transporting agents and refugees in both directions. Apart from the museum there is also a memorial on the quayside to
the Norwegian men who died operating the service.
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| Memorial to the crews of the Shetland Bus Operation, Scalloway |
It was always our intention to
optimise our time in Scandinavia and of necessity limit the time we spent on
the east coast of the UK. We had never
cruised in Scandinavia before but have sailed and know the east coast. Since a
favourable wind was suddenly forecast, we left Lerwick as soon as we got back from
our excursion to Scalloway. We sailed
on a beam reach in a Force 5–6 for two and a half days from Lerwick to
Eyemouth, the most southerly port in Scotland.
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| Eyemouth harbour |
The mouth of the River Eye is a
natural well-protected harbour. Records of its use as such date back to the
twelfth century. Today the town is one
of the most important of southeast Scotland’s fishing ports, with a large
home-based fleet of seiners. It is also
frequently visited by fishing boats from other ports, including Orkney and
Shetland, who land their catch there.
We called into Eyemouth to meet Shelagh
and Joe (as we did last year during our Circumnavigation of Great
Britain). Helen and Shelagh have been
friends since they were nine. We had an
excellent crab salad lunch in the sun in the cockpit.
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| Old friends! |
In the evening we joined up with
Mike and Fiona Bennett from Follyfin, on whom we were rafted, for a
pot-luck supper. Follyfin is a
very smart, new Southerly 38. They
brought home-cooked langoustines (purchased directly off a fishing boat that
morning) and we produced hot-smoked salmon (bought from the fishmongers).
Whitby, one hundred miles south,
was our next port of call. We left
Eyemouth at 2 a.m. on the tide and again had a cracking sail, arriving at 8
p.m. On our way we watched the sun rising through the rain clouds.
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| Sunrise over the North Sea |
We
pulled on to a free waiting pontoon to sit out the tide. Whitby is probably our favourite port on the
east coast. It is another natural
harbour at the mouth of a river – in this case the Esk. It has been a bustling port for over a thousand
years. Captain Cook began his
illustrious career there, firstly as an apprentice, and later as the master of a
collier.
The skeletal ruins of Whitby Abbey
overlook the harbour entrance. In 664
the Synod of Whitby, at which King Oswiu ruled that the Northumbrian church
would adopt the Roman calculation of Easter and monastic tonsure, took place at
the abbey.
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| Whitby Abbey |
We left eight hours later at 4
a.m. for a three-hour downwind sail to Scarborough. Just what one needs to build up an appetite for a full English
breakfast on board. On arrival we met,
by chance, Alastair Buchan, whom we had met 12 years previously in the
Azores. He is a regular contributor to
the yachting press and has in particular written a beginner’s guide to crossing
the Atlantic.
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| Visitors' pontoon, Scarborough |
The town is another ancient port
and is a major holiday resort – initially developed for well-heeled Victorians. Today its visitors are generally less well
heeled. If one ignores the garish
amusement arcades on the promenade, it is not too difficult to visualise the
splendour of Victorian Scarborough. The town even claims to have been the first
bathing resort in the UK, dating back to 1763 – and has a statue to prove
it.
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| Bathing belle, Scarborough |
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| Another sunny evening in the cockpit |
We were joined in the evening by Carol and Bill Tetlow, friends from Bedale.
Our intention, when leaving Scarborough,
was to get to Ipswich with the fuel and water tanks virtually empty. However, with negligible wind we had to
motor-sail most of the way, necessitating a stop in Lowestoft to fill a couple
of cans with diesel – just in case.
We eventually arrived back in
Ipswich at 10.30 p.m. on a balmy summer’s evening, having had 40 hours motor-sailing
in glorious weather, just before last orders at the marina's bar on the quay. We seem to have brought summer home with us. The fact that the jet stream has at last moved further north might also have helped...
In total, we spent 100 days on our
Scandinavian Cruise and covered 2,400 miles. During that time
we took Island Drifter through five countries and into 68
locations. For the statistically minded
among you, the locations by country were: Holland, Germany and Denmark 4 each;
Sweden 17; Norway 32, and the UK including Shetland 7. Of the 68 locations, we anchored 12 times,
picked up 6 buoys, stayed in 10 marinas, berthed on 9 town pontoons, 22 quays
and at 4 yacht clubs, and moored to 5 rock faces. The most interesting statistic, however, is that we came across only three other British yachts during the whole of our cruise.
It has been an excellent
trip! We now have until Friday to clean and offload gear from Island Drifter and get her lifted out of the water for the winter before attending our friends James and Kate Denby's Ruby Anniversary party. Then we'll be off to the beach hut for a rest!
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