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| Great to be back in Scotland |
The Gazette went on further to state: 'Another feature of the month were the very strong winds during the first 10 days - with a gust of 63 mph recorded on the 5th, a result of unusually deep depressions for early summer lying to the west of the Hebrides'. So, these were the depressions that had affected us during our crossing, we didn't just imagine them.
Generally, it was wet, cold and grey during our three week stay in Stornoway, but, it didn't matter. We needed the rest and opportunity to make repairs. More than anything, we needed to dry out. Everything in the boat was soaked, all lockers had to be emptied, cleaned and dried. All our clothes had to be taken to the laundry and dried. The new upholstery was wet, the mattress was wet, the books were wet and mildewed. It had to be all taken out of the boat. The challenge was to find a time between rain showers to get the drying process started.
The ripped mainsail was sent to Glasgow for repair. It took three weeks round-trip which is why we ended up with a three week stay. The 'dead' generator problem was found to be just a solenoid switch. We'll need to order a new one later, right now Glenn was able to make a workaround using a piece of string! We also ordered a portable isolation transformer which will allow us to safely use our North American boat's 110V electrical system with the 220V European systems.
We had seen many of the other Scottish islands and sailing destinations during three previous trips to Scotland, so, weren't too unhappy about staying in one spot for three weeks. We took the ferry/bus into Inverness one day, primarily to stock up on all our favourite Marks & Spencer food goodies. We'd been warned to stock up on food supplies as food and everything else is very expensive in Norway. It was a nice diversion to have somebody else do the sailing for once. It was also a sunny day in Inverness, but, raining again on our return to Stornoway.
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| On ferry to Inverness |
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| On ferry to Inverness |
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| Inverness |
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| Inverness |
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| Harris |
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| Lewis |
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| G on beach, Isle of Harris |
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| Beach, Isle of Harris |
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| A on beach, Isle of Harris |
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| Black House Village |
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| Calloway Standing Stones |
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| Nice walk along the River Creed, Stornoway |
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| Nice walk along the River Creed, Stornoway |
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| Lews Castle, Stornoway |
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| Stornoway Lifeboat |
Simon and Nicola - the first people to welcome us to the dock on our arrival. Experienced cruisers who had sailed their boat back to the U.K. from Hong Kong
James - a local sailor who invited us for dinner to his home and made us very welcome
the fisherman on the boat next to ours - who, when he'd been out fishing, always left us some really
fresh mackerel (he even cleaned them) on our boat
Anthony and crew - a group of experienced sailors who swapped stories on their boat one evening. Digger introduced us to the books of his father-in-law, David Horvath, who headed the 'Shetland Bus' operations during the war (more on this later). Ally told us about her friend's efforts to buy and save a Harris Tweed mill.
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| 'Shetland Bus' memorial, Scalloway |
Tony - the local diesel mechanic and lifeboatman, who helped us with our generator.
the harbour seals - not 'people', but, visits from a couple of very large harbour seals who would visit the boat quite often were very welcome
the Queen and family - we just missed seeing the Queen and family, as they were in port just before
we arrived to embark on their own summer Hebridean cruise aboard the 'Hebridean Princess' an old ferry which has been renovated as the new royal yacht. Wonder if they enjoyed the weather...
After three weeks, we were ready to resume our journey. We planned to continue to Bergen, Norway, our original destination, by breaking up the approximately 400 mile journey into two legs, one to Lerwick in the Shetland Isles and then from Lerwick to Bergen.
So, with a good weather forecast, a fully re-provisioned boat and our repaired equipment installed, we were on our way, Tuesday, August 17th.
SCOTLAND - Lerwick, Shetland Isles
The journey to the Shetlands was uneventful. Visibility going into Lerwick was poor and there was a fair amount of shipping about, particulary around Fair Isle. But, the approach was easy and we arrived within a couple of hours of plan on Thursday, August 19.
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| Lerwick, Shetland Isles |
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| Scalloway Castle |
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| Scalloway Castle |
of provisions which will hopefully last 3-4 months.
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| Shetland pony |
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| Shetland ponies |
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| Shetland pony show |
We had planned to leave Saturday, but, as there was a Force 11, Violent Storm, (56-63 knots) in the local forecast we decided the prudent move was to stay in port. One Norwegian boat decided to head out and hopefully get to Norway before the storm, maybe they knew something we didn't, hope they made it. The other cruisers all decided to stay and wait.
Meeting the other cruisers in Lerwick made us feel a little inadequate. There was so much experience and skill in evidence that we were beginning to feel a little bit out of our element. We met:
Dick and Elly - Dutch sailors with 200,000 cruising miles under their keel. Dick is a yacht designer and had designed their aluminum boat. Elly is a sailing author with four books to her credit. They gave us a tour of their boat, but, as their books were only in Dutch we weren't able to do more than look at pictures of their voyages which included Antarctica and Norway. The boat was lovely with many custom features. They have lived aboard for twenty-five years.
Gary and Leslie - U.S. sailors from California who have sailed around the world and then some. They gave us valuable info about Norway as they were just returning from their second summer cruise there. They lay the boat up in the U.K. each winter and fly back to the U.S.
The storm blew through on Saturday and Sunday dawned flat calm. With hindsight, this is when we should have left. However, we chose to leave Monday.
LERWICK -> BERGEN
We left Lerwick on Monday, August 23. The forecast was ok, F4-5 winds, but, it was going to be NE, on-the-nose. However, it was due to back to N/NW which was favourable so we went. We made slow progress on Monday. One highlight was seeing two whales. The wind was slowly increasing.
About 1/3 of the way across the North Sea, the latest weather forecast gave a hint that it wasn't going to be so rosy as first indicated. There was a '...possibility of a F8 gale later the next day...'. Right on schedule, Tuesday at 1700, the wind suddenly increased to a steady 44 knots, with gusts to 50. This wasn't a F8 Gale, this was an F9 Strong Gale, we couldn't believe our bad luck. We were about
ten miles off an oil platform at this point and had just started to pass through two rings of eleven ships that appeared to be lined up to get into the plaform for loading or whatever. They had been circling the platform in two queues and I'd been watching them on the AIS. As soon as the wind hit, they all dispersed and moved away from the platform, guess they were taken by surprise as well.
Unfortunately, this meant that there were now eleven ships all randomly moving about, they seemed to be just idling as they weren't moving much and we were right in the middle of it. It became like a game of bumper cars as the ships frequently changed direction and we never knew when, or, if, they'd start moving our way. We spent the night pinned to the AIS screen. We called one ship up to ask if they could give us a weather report which they did. We also asked if they could see us on their radar. They couldn't, until we gave them our location.
When the wind hit, we had hesitated about heaving-to. We had wanted to continue to sail to try and get away from the shipping. As soon as we cleared the ships, we were going to heave-to. Events intervened. Our newly repaired (for around $500) mainsail ripped in half again, about six inches below where it had been repaired. We had asked the sail loft to put a new panel in. When the sail
came back from Glasgow they had only put a patch on which obviously wasn't adequate.
After a tense Tuesday night, the next day had a few other momentous events:
0530 - we started sailing again. Two of the hose clamps which are used to attach the windvane's control lines to the wheel, snapped in half. We hove-to again and after digging out more hose clamps from under the v-berth, repaired.
0700 - our kerosene lantern, for some unknown reason, had earlier started leaking kerosene all over the salon table. We had quickly taken it down and stuffed it into a bucket with newspapers. When we moved the bucket to get the hose clamps out to fix the windvane, the bucket fell over and yes, the glass chimney shattered into a million pieces and we now had kerosene and broken glass everywhere.
Isn't sailing fun!
By 1000 Wednesday, August 25, we were motoring in about 30 knots. We had been unable to properly fix the windvane clamps and they broke again. We had lots of diesel and wanted
to make sure we got to the coast of Norway to make landfall before dark so we motored. Visibility was bad, we couldn't even see Norway until we were about eight miles off. Between the chartplotter and the autopilot it was a very smooth, easy entry onto a lee shore. We had been worried we might
encounter some breakers going in, but, the entrance was about a mile wide and we just rode the waves in under a rapidly darkening evening sky. We had previously located an anchorage only about three miles in from the sea. At 2100, we were tied up safely on a mooring ball, the only boat in a tiny, perfect, calm, very beautiful anchorage.
We had survived the North Sea, which had lived up to its fearsome reputation. Our anticipated 36 hour 'puddlejump' had turned into a 60 hour ordeal, but, we had arrived safely in Norway and were excited to be here!
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