Portmahomack, Dornoch Firth 57:50.216N 003:50.332W

Pelagia
Frans & Sarah Toonen
Tue 3 Sep 2013 12:56
3 Sept 2013 S/SW 3/4 on the nose.

A long passage from Kirkwall today passing the infamous Penrith Firth where tides can run at 12 knots. In order to arrive at our intended anchorage at Portmahomack and to ensure we had favourable tides across the Penrith Firth departure from Kirkwall was to be at 4am, we in fact managed to leave at 0340. Wind forecast was for southerlies precisely the direction we had to go. Won't bore you with too many details on our sailing performance but suffice to say it was slow progress into the wind. As soon as we rounded the headland near Wick we turned on the engine and motored the remaining 7 hours. Arrival at Portmahomack after 2100 was in the dark and we only just managed to miss some fishnets before we dropped anchor in an area marked on the chart as 'foul' which means….don't anchor here as it's a rubbish dump. Oh well it was a 16 hour passage. Portmahomack looks pretty in the pilot book but we won't see it.