Day 8...Stornaway

I awoke to the sight of land and sheep, heading to the port and doing a smooth 5-6 knots (well in comparison to last night, it felt like as if it was half the speed. Fab! The common tern is well, common here, and man do they make noise. So we pulled up alongside the port, as I ate breakfast of porridge and honey. We were joined by a fishing vessel in order to aid ‘spooning off’ the winch. In mid flow all the chaps and chapesses who could go, headed out to check out Stornaway and make use of some free time to stretch our legs. We found the path to the Victorian castle, walking amongst the Rodedendrons and found a nice bay, good enough to swim in. Yes, as always there’s a spare bikini in every bag I have and in I went. In a word, beautiful, a crisp 15 degrees I’d say. This was my most northerly swim and was pretty awesome. Soon Therese joined in… a great evening, followed by evening beers. We met a fantastic sailing dude called Jim who has been travelling since his retirement around the British Isles. I also meet Odd, the new 1st mate here to accompany the bridge crew on the rest of the trip and I have to say one of the funniest men alive. The ship has a new dynamic positioning (DP) system and there has to be two on the bridge at all times, so we have the pleasure of Odd here. A guy who has sailed the world and perhaps reminds me of what my brother will be like when he gets to that age, being a seaman of the world. A Jukebox was present, so quickly au bar, then to le box. I have to say I would not even call the collection of music on this machine retro, it was bizarre, I mean who the hell puts Daniel O’Donnell and a techno version of Lovefool by the cardigans on the jukebox. Anyway, Niklas and I were trying to convince el Capitano Christer to have The final Countdown by Europe as the ships song, a pleasant laugh was the answer. Damn, we will try again.