Whoo! We’re around the corner and heading South. Today was probably the most difficult stretch of water we’ll have to navigate all trip, and I know it’s been lurking in the back of our minds for a while. So feels really good to now finally be around Pentland Firth, nicknamed “Hell’s Mouth”.
The wind forecast looked possible at best, but we thought we’d go out and give it a try. When we first set out the wind was super light, and the tide hadn’t quite turned. This meant that for 40 minutes, we were just tacking back and forth over our same tracks, without making any headway. (Today was all upwind). As the tide started to turn, the wind picked up, and we were soon doing 5, 7 then 9knots through the water. At it’s peak the tide here can run at 15knots, so most of our speed was due to the current rather than the wind.
The “Merry Men of Mey”, went by without any fanfare. This is a set of overfalls stretching between St John’s Point on mainland Scotland across to Hoy in the Orkneys, blocking our path around to Ducansby Head, then further south. Having experienced the swell from two days ago when we reached Dunnet’s Head, I was prepared for the worst. But I think all the men had gone to the pub, as there was barely a difference in sea state as we went past. In fact the whole day was relatively calm, with the only whitecaps when we reached our destination outside Wick.
With today’s challenge out the way I know we’ll all sleep well tonight. Tomorrow we’ll hopefully continue our journey south, heading back to the UK’s City of Culture, Hull, and our starting point.
I just wish it was today that my parents chose to join us, as think they’d be far less worried the rest of the trip. But hopefully Trish’s account of the day helped quell their nerves.
Map of today’s route
Map Key: Stew (Red), Islay (White) and Mentor (Blue)
| Days since start of trip | 84 |
| Number of Kiting Days | 39 |
| Distance Travelled Today | 27.5 nm |
| Distance Kited Today | 46.41 nm |
| Time spent kiting today | 3 hrs 59mins |
| Total Distance Travelled | 1296.8 nm |
| Total Distance Kited | 1876.9 nm |
| Total Kiting time | 193hrs 58mins |
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