History
The Pentland Firth, and the corner the sea guards
Between the top of mainland Scotland and Orkney runs a strip of water so violent it has its own named whirlpool. Ships still treat it with more respect than the map suggests it deserves.
By Arthur Penhallow26 September 20264 min read
On a chart, the Pentland Firth looks like nothing much: a short gap of blue between the top of mainland Scotland and the southern edge of Orkney, no wider at its narrowest than a decent sea loch. What the chart does not show is the tide, which funnels through that gap with such force that parts of the Firth run among the fastest tidal streams in Europe, capable of overwhelming a small boat that misjudges the state of the water. Off the island of Stroma, a race known as the Swelkie has been swallowing careless vessels for so long that Norse sailors built it into their own mythology, as the site of a mill grinding out the salt of the sea, a story that made more sense to men who had watched the water there than it does on paper.
The end of Britain, more or less
John o' Groats, on the mainland shore of the Firth, has the popular reputation of marking the far end of Great Britain, the northern bookend to Land's End in the phrase that has launched a thousand charity walks and cycle rides. It is not, strictly, true. The actual most northerly point of the mainland is Dunnet Head, a few miles to the west, a distinction John o' Groats has never allowed to interfere with its own reputation and which most visitors are perfectly happy to overlook.
A story that made more sense to men who had watched the water there than it does on paper.
What John o' Groats does have, close by at Duncansby Head, are sea stacks of real drama: tall fingers of sandstone rising straight out of the water below dramatic cliffs, cut off from the mainland by the same relentless erosion that keeps the Firth's currents so lively. Cruise ships passing this stretch of coast on their way to or from Orkney often make a point of the sail-by, since neither John o' Groats nor Duncansby has a harbour capable of taking a ship of any size.
Orkney's own stack, and its own memorial
Across the Firth in Orkney, the coastline keeps up the theme. The Old Man of Hoy, a sandstone sea stack rising some 137 metres from a wave-cut platform, is one of the tallest in Britain and one of the most climbed, first scaled in 1966 by a team that included the mountaineer Chris Bonington in a televised ascent that made the stack briefly famous well beyond the climbing world. It continues to erode, slowly and visibly, and geologists expect it eventually to collapse, though nobody can say with any confidence when.
Further along Orkney's Mainland, at Marwick Head, a squat stone tower stands above cliffs busy with nesting seabirds in early summer. It commemorates Lord Kitchener, the field marshal and secretary of state for war, who drowned nearby in June 1916 when HMS Hampshire struck a German mine and sank within minutes, taking almost the entire crew with it. The wreck lies not far offshore, and the memorial, plain and undramatic against a landscape that is neither, marks one of the more startling casualties of the First World War to occur within sight of the British coast rather than on a foreign battlefield.
Passing through, carefully
Few ships attempt to sail the Pentland Firth itself; most round Orkney to the north or take the more sheltered route south of the islands, and the decision is left to the captain and the tide tables rather than the itinerary. Fred. Olsen's Wild Beauty of the Scottish Isles, seven nights from Newcastle, passes close to Marwick Head on its way to Kirkwall, while Ambassador's Springtime Shores sailing calls at Scrabster, on the mainland side of the Firth, specifically so that passengers can make the short crossing to John o' Groats and Duncansby.
Scenic Islands and Highlands of Scotland, nine nights from Newcastle, works Kirkwall into a longer Highland route by way of Ullapool and the Hebridean sail-bys, giving a fuller sense of just how much of this coast is defined by water that would rather not be crossed at all.
Whichever way a ship takes it, the Pentland Firth is the kind of place that rewards being taken seriously. The Norse thought a mill ground salt beneath it. Modern navigation charts simply mark the tide race and leave the poetry to older sources, which is probably the more honest approach.
By Arthur Penhallow, the name Atlas & Passage’s editorial team writes under. Prices and dates in the trips below come from the operators and can change.
