Maunie of Ardwall: Weaving between the islands in Orkney

With the strong winds finally abated, we could leave Stromness and head out to explore some of the other islands in the archipelago - and there are plenty to choose from!

Our first target was the capital of Orkney, Kirkwall which is just 17 miles from Stomness by road but considerably longer by sea. We'd chatted to some locals who all cautioned against 'doing a west-about' - leaving the way we came, out of Hoy Mouth and northwards up the western side of the island that's called, slightly confusingly, Mainland. Apparently, after a few days of strong westerlies, the sea state would be very uncomfortable. Instead, we planned an 'east-about', sailing down through Scapa Flow and out around Lother Rock at the southern tip of South Ronaldsay.

Once again, the pesky tides needed to he given a good looking at and we decided that the timing of leaving Stromness on a favourable tide and passing Lother Rock at slack water (rather than at 6 knot of tide that runs there at the wrong moments) would be tricky. Instead, we'd make an overnight stop at Longhope thereby converting a 17 mile road trip into a two-day voyage - it's a good job we aren't in a hurry.

The sail to Longhope was interesting in that we passed through Gutter Sound, a place where 103 years before, to the very day, the interned German naval fleet of 34 destroyers and 5 battleships, were scuttled by their crews. With protracted negotiations between the Allies still going on, the Germans feared that at least some of their ships would be given to the French so decided that sinking them would be a better course of action!

Brisk winds and rain prevented us from dinghying ashore at Longhope, unfortunately, which was a shame as the 19th Century Martello tower and the WW2 defence battery looked like interesting places to visit. However, the following morning we had perfect conditions for rounding South Ronaldsay and then took a two-hour break to wait for tide in East Weddel Sound.

The excellent anchorage lies just to the east on one of the Churchill Barriers, built (largely by Italian POWs) to block access to the east side of Scapa Flow after a daring night time raid by a U-boat in 1939 succeeded in sneaking past block-ships sunk in the sounds. U47 scraped through, after being briefly snagged on cables strung between the blockships, and torpedoed the battleship HMS Royal Oak as she slept at anchor. The mighty ship's ammunition hold exploded and the ship capsized in only 15 minutes with the loss of over 800 of her crew.

The little island to the north of us, Lamb Holm, is where the Italian POW's built the famous Italian Church, using two Nissen huts and some very clever concrete work and amazing artwork.

Moving onto Kirkwall, we had another couple of days of windy weather (this is definitely a theme!) and, while it was great to be able to use a laundrette, shop at a large Tesco and eat at a good Italian restaurant, we were surprised at how neither of us really liked the place. Just too many people, especially when the flags were rigged:

The flags, of course, were there to welcome the thousands of passengers on the cruise ship Costa Fortuna (really!) who poured into the town to fill the cafes and tourist shops. We certainly can't blame the Orcadians for wanting to attract cruise liners - and they will have over 150 of them calling in this year between May and September - and the jewellery and art shops that line the streets do great business from them but we were glad to leave!

Finally, we had a lovely day for sailing! Blue sky and a favourable wind allowed us to fly the Parasailor for the three hour passage up to Pierowall in Westray.

It was another passage that required careful tide planning as it took us through narrow sounds between islands and past a huge new tidal energy turbine but we were delighted to find space in the tiny Westray Marina.

The 17-berth pontoon sits in the little fishing harbour across the bay from the village and we had a great hike out to the coastline to the north-west