Tuesday 27th August 2013 Very wet Southerly Force 5, sunny Westerly Force 3 

Departed Lerwick in the rain and with the wind on the nose we had no option (motoring is not an option with us being sailors) but to tack in a south east direction ending up about 7 miles east of Mousa island. The moment we thought about tacking into a westerly direction the wind suddenly shifted a full 45 degrees and hay presto our course was good for the Fair Isle… sometimes the wind gods are with us. We cleared Sumburgh Head by 3 miles although there was no sign of any extra disturbance caused by the famous race off the headland. We could see the big orange Bibby Polaris at work in the Bay of Quendale where they are still looking for the helicopter tail section to recover the black box.

Despite detailed tidal flow research (again) we found the flood pushing us far south of Fair Isle so when we were about 6 miles off we gave up and motored in arriving after 7pm. There is only one other yacht here but as they are leaving at 8 they didn't want us outside them so we moored onto the Good Shepherd ferry…hope it's not off at 6.30am.

Having checked the weather we intend to move on to Orkney (maybe Kirkwall) to wait out the strong winds due Friday/Saturday and Sunday - yuk it must be winter already, jolly chilly at times.