Bay of Ireland to Sandquoy Bay, Sanday; and on to Scalloway

On Friday I sailed from Bay of Ireland to Bay of Sandquoy on Sanday, via the west side of Mainland and Weatherness Sound. The steady south easterlies looked fair for Shetland.

I didn't really try to do a proper tidal plan for the trip to Shetland - given my timing, I kind of expected the initial west-going current near North Ronaldsay would roughly cancel out the later east-going current on the other side. This set me quite a bit north of the course I had meant to take, so that instead of ending up anchoring behind St. Ninian's Isle (I have to save that for the way back, now) I went to Scalloway.

I tried anchoring overnight off Ayre of Sandwick in West Burra Firth, but this was a bad idea. Despite the wind remaining light, I dragged in the night and ended up nearly on the other side of the firth. I'd been relying on an anchor watch app that had worked in the past, but somehow I had switched off its notifications (probably while trying to kill off a host of annoying reminders and nudges from other apps ...). Its little warning sign was flashing vigorously, but the beep had gone.

So I ended up motoring round to Scalloway at 4am, feeling a bit lucky.

Scalloway was delightful. The boat club has great facilities and berthing is cheap. It's also only five miles from Lerwick. By road ...