Trilleen and I came round Muckle Flugga, in a Muckle blow, from the south east. Achieving the turn point around Shetland’s northernmost point is the furthest north I go on this Round Britain and Ireland sail, and a point which I thought I might never reach, impeded as much by technical failures, tragedies, and self doubt as by any effect of disability.
I’d hung about at Westray, in the northernmost anchorage on Orkney, for several days waiting for a turn in the wind from North East which would have equated to days of work upwind, not ideal when solo in coastal waters. Eventually a kink in the front produced a transient southeasterly which gave me a fast reach to Shetland’s west coast through the the twilight that masquerades as night here in the season of white nights. The afternoon brought a wind with tide – but against Trilleen – rounding of what is a truly fearsome headland at Muckle Flugga, with the white shining radome of RAF Saxa Vord guarding the northern flank of the UK’s airspace from its perch on the clifftop.
The south easterly flow then resulted in a a fierce beat across the top of the archipelago and then down into the teeth of a Force 6 going 7 to reach the hoped for haven at Baltasound. That beat was smashing – literally, Trilleen was alternately airborne and trying out a future role as a submarine as she crashed into the waves, and the waves were breaking all the way back to the cockpit creating a human car wash which I’m still drying out from with the help of the excellent facilities at Unst Boating Club a wonderful outfit still going strong after 134 years.
Muckle Flugga lies at 60°51N, about the same latitude as St Petersburg, the south end of Greenland, Hudson Bay, the Gulf of Alaska and the junction between the the Labrador Sea and the Davis Straight, If all those places sound cold, serious and quite a long way north – you are getting the picture correctly. It’s the southern border of the loosely defined High North, and the point above which the seas become progressively less friendly, more frigid, and gale wracked even in the brief summer months.
Baltasound is a large shallow natural harbour on the east coast of Unst and the Pilot described it as having ‘good holding’ which was a falsehood. What it does have is mountains of kelp seaweed which my anchor dragged through happily as the teeth of a gale set in the next day. I’m very grateful to the several fishermen and boaters who helped me slot Trilleen into the wall behind a fishing boat and lent me monster fenders from the quayside.
Even the quay is not actually very sheltered in this wind, but it does have the advantage of being attached a a lot of concrete which isn’t going to move. I don’t like being alongside piers – it’s a hazard disability wise getting on and off the boat, there’s always an enhanced risk of damage – current score, Quay: 1 nav light, Trilleen nil. The boat needs constant attention to stop her getting hung up on the tide but needs must, even if that meant not getting to bed until 0345 this morning to check her at low tide.