Diary of a Deckhand

The silvery head silently emerges from the rippled water, huge black eyes follow me as I make my way along the bumpy path.  The selkie slips from view, back to its other world of fish, kelp and bubbles and I pass from the land of people to one of the things Orkney does best - silence.

Ochre rocks with their tiny puddles of pristine sand jut out into the surging water, no waves stir its surface; it is merely in a hurry to exit Scapa Flow and rejoin the Atlantic as the tide pushes and pulls the cold liquid up and down the shore.

Birds and the gentle sound of the tide are the only sounds out here, the sun making its lazy way to the west, the light fading gradually and the shadows elongate and join to one.

Wreckage from various boats lies strewn amongst the pebbles at the high tide mark, its rusting forms sculpted and polished by the winter storms which change this place utterly.

I sit alone on the shingle beach facing the west, and watch the sun slowly, inevitably, slip from the sky.  Then make my way back, racing the darkness which unfurls across the landscape like a velvet sheet.

Hoy Sound with the Hamnavoe coming in

Hamnavoe just off the Kirk Rocks

From the shore

Wreckage on the beach

Polished by the weather

A curl of seaweed

A net bag on the beach

Long forgotten brass

Wreckage being reclaimed by nature

Sunset over the Atlantic

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