Fairwinds 2005

Day 9 - Rousay

Slept late then woke to a westerly wind blowing at 25-30 knots, spinning our anemometer furiously but not the wind generator, which was low enough to be sheltered by the pier. Put another line on and blew up the big orange inflateable fender we bought on Ebay (an online auction house, not an island . . .) then went for a walk on the nature reserve and up the hills. (Rousay is the hilliest of the outlying islands, with the exception of Hoy to the South of the Mainland)

Back to the boat for a traditional Fairwinds (tinned) haggis supper and a bit of mindbending passage planning making sure we could get a ride on the tide all the way to Westray the next day without encountering any nasty swirly things en route. Finally to the pub for a few pints of Northern Light and some interesting crack with local fish farm workers. Learnt a new (to us anyway) term for yachties - WAFIs (which stands for ‘Wind Assisted F…ing Idiots). All in good humour, with a lot of mutual banter between the aging hippy barman and the Rastafarian Shetland fish farm foreman. Apart from fish farm redundancies conversation centred around the proposed fixed link to the inner isles of Rousay and Shapinsay from the Orkney mainland. Those incomers who have moved to an island because they want to be on one have a diametrically opposed view to locals running a business there with all the extra cost and hassle being on an island involves.

After one last drink bought for us by the local fish vet, who was bemoaning the lack of housing for single people on the island, we retired to Fairwinds for a sensible 9 o’clock departure in the morning. Wind still blowing 25-30 knots, but we slept just fine.