6th September – Stromness receives it’s first cruise ship since 2019. Ocean Explorer arrived early this morning and departs at 7pm this evening, plenty of time for the passengers to see Orkney!
This is an example of an X-Bow ship, designed to cut through the waves more efficiently than a conventional bow, resulting in a quieter and more comfortable voyage.
7th September – A great day for a Shorewatch, I completed my 200th today!. It’s certainly no hardship to sit out at Ness Point on days like this. Didn’t see anything, though!
10th September – H received a surprise parcel today, this lavender plant was rescued by Gillian from their Dad’s garden.
Hopefully we can do it justice and keep it flourishing in our wet, windy climate. A nice memento and a big thankyou to Gill.
12th September – After a day of incessant rain yesterday, we had a lovely day today. Spent some time Shorewatching and spotted three Risso’s dolphins.
Luckily H was with me at the time, she’s managed to see all the sightings with me, which is great. I’d feel guilty if I was seeing all the animals and she was missing out!
13th September – H managed to snap two anglers with their catch down on the slipway. Fish doesn’t get much fresher than when it’s filleted on the slipway wall. The left pic shows a pair of pollock and the right hand is a dogfish ( aka rock salmon ).
16th September – Coming back from Kirkwall, this afternoon, we spotted this novel approach to viewing the neolithic tomb of Maeshowe.
Apparently these paragliders (one is just out of shot) have electric motors, they are doing a tour of Scotland, sponsored by EDF, demonstrating the progress being made in green technologies.
There is a sad postscript to this post.
This photo was taken on the Thursday as the pair passed through Orkney, on the Saturday (18th ) their machines collided in the mountains to the north of Lochinver and one of the team was killed, with the other badly injured.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-58615590
A tragic end to an important mission.
21st September – A bright but blustery day here giving us a lovely mackerel sky over the Flow.
22nd September – We received a phone call from the Surgery this morning asking if we wanted flu jags this year. Naturally, we accepted and were both jagged this afternoon. Good service.
26th September – The Plumber’s day off. We met K and D at Ness Point this afternoon. He has done a lot of work for us, including the new shower room upstairs.
The couple look after horses in paddocks outside Stromness. The horses are regularly exercised around the town and provide a lot of nourishment for the town’s rose growers.
We installed a couple of sparrow nest boxes about a week ago and were pleased to see this little group having a look. I just hope they can get a mortgage!
Scapa Views 
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