Stopping Places: Orkney and Shetland.

To see my recent visits to each anchorage check out the "Labels" towards the bottom of the right hand panel or follow the individual links.

Updated Jan 23 to include Harbours and Marinas also info on fuel & gas availability.

Further updated during a boring winter 2023/4 to include some information on access to and from marinas. See my page Marina notes (opens in a new window) for some general tips and the context (handling of my boat) in which I comment.

Videos are often best viewed at half speed, I have to pan quite quickly to keep the file size down to be within the limit set by blogger and I don't want to be editing and compressing whilst on the boat.
Anchorages = red, Marinas = Blue, Green Possible
Chart updated to 14th May 2025.

 
Anchorages = red, Marinas = Blue, Green Possible
Chart updated to 14th May 2025.

Content in order displayed updated to 14th May 2025:

Orkney:
  • Stromness Marina
  • Bay of Ireland (Stromness).
  • Hunda Sound (Scarpa Flow).
  • Kirkwall marina.
  • Elwick, Shapensay.
  • Millburn Bay, Gairsay.
  • Bay of Holland, Stronsay.
  • Freshness Bay, Eday.
  • Otterswick, Sanday.
Shetland:
  • Grutness Voe.
  • Bay of Fladdabister.
  • Gulber Wick.
  • Lerwick.

Orkney.

Stromness


A good small marina, managed remotely from Kirkwall with daily visits, very friendly! Don't stray too far off or past the pontoons due to shallow water otherwise there are no significant problems. Book in advance see Orkney Marinas - Stromness Marina.

Note that finger pontoons at Stromness (and Kirkwall but not the designated visitors berths) do not have conventional mooring cleats but small metal loops you have to thread your lines through, a bit of a pain, especially short handed. The hammerheads have normal cleats but the outside berths are for large boats, and you might be asked to move if you use one.

The fuel berth is tricky to get to, in April 2025 had a boat permanently moored on it and only open by appointment (there were plans 2020, to install an automatic pump, nothing done by 2025), I used porterage. A garage is a good walk but doable with a trolley, they also have Calor Gas. Update 2024: no CampingGaz in Stromness but I found one in Kirkwall, “Orkney Aggregates”, one minutes walk from the Kirkwall bus depot, best to ring first, they only had two 907’s when I arrived.

Electricity £5 per day which I think is a bit steep! but I don't need it and in 2025 I was paying £25 per night for the berth, less than half what it would cost on the south coast.

Facilities at the ferry terminal were mostly closed due to lock down when I was there in 2020 and 2021. Decent cheap showers and laundry (£5 wash, £3 dry - 2 required for most items) used in 2024 and 2025.

Small shops including a deli and hardware store, places to eat and a couple of take always a short walk away. A good Co-Op is a bit further away. Phone signals fine, have not tried the WI-FI.

Stromness marina. A good Co-Op on the right of the photo, a
garage with fuel just behind it. The rest of the shops etc.  are
in the opposite direction.

Bay of Ireland (Stromness)


A useful anchorage to ride out strongish northerly winds when you are fed up with paying for the marina. Completely exposed to the S and SW, good holding in clean sand at sensible depths but look out for patches of weed and pot buoys, little shelter from the wind but sea was no problem in F7 northerly and if something did go wrong there is miles of water behind. Phone signals are fine.

There is shallow water off of Bu Point - check the chart!

 
There may have been a fish farm on the west side, on the
Monday after I moved there moorings were being lifted,
it would be advisable to use a tripping line if anchoring 
close in, you never know what got left behind.



Hunda Sound (Scarpa Flow)

An excellent anchorage and a very convenient start point when heading south or when arriving from the west or south late at night, see "Navigating the Pentland Firth". Look out for fish farms off East Ayre,

On arrival at 04:00 on a May morning.
Visited 2020 and 2021.

Kirkwall marina.


Better protection than it appears to have from the pilot and charts but a westerly can whip through. There is room to turn round at the end of the E/W pontoon so you can face into westerly winds. Lots of ferry movements but most are operating from the RORO terminal just west of the harbour, as mentioned in the pilot be sure to call the harbour on Channel 14 before entering or departing. I had difficulty understanding some of the radio calls from ships, probably with foreign crews.

Electricity £5 per day which I think is a bit steep! There are few connection points so you will need to be lucky or have a very long cable, but I don't need it and in 2025 I was paying £25 per night for the berth, less than half what it would cost on the south coast.

Sancerre on the E / W pontoon, access pontoon and more visitors
berths to the right. One of the marina staff said the Sancerre was
in “position A”, except I guess for a finger berth if one was offered. 
The SW wind starting to set in April 2025, it later 
reached 30 knots gusting 40.
Kirkwall shops are very tourist orientated (and have a short season), big delli with a lot of overpriced (in my view) things to attract tourists but some good stuff as well. CO-OP for basics is not far but if you don't mind the walk there is a Tesco Super store, the Apple Maps app says its 1.5 miles but I doubt its more than a mile by the walking direct route as I could do it inside 20 minutes carrying a load.

Basic toilets and showers in a converted container, quite acceptable but the room did not appear to be heated in May 2025 and it was darn cold (when it was 27 degrees in London). No onsite laundry but a (self service?) laundromat in town, not used by me.

Vodaphone 4G good (the iPad does not support 5G), O2 5G was fast and reliable.

Visited April 2025

Elwick, Shapensay.


A good anchorage in a northerly, less so if there is west in the wind. I had been warned that it could be uncomfortable in a south-westerly due to waves being refracted round by the land and tide but I found it to be quite lively in a F4-5 north-westerly, not untenable but not good either, in these conditions Millburn Bay would be a better bet or perhaps one of the anchorages west of Kirkwall.

Vodaphone OK, O2 claims to be 5G but reverts to a poor 4G at times and I gave up trying to upload pics.


Visited in 2025.

Millburn Bay, Gairsay.

An excellent anchorage although exposed to the east, care needed outside the entrance with turbulent water and an islet not too far away, but not difficult. The sea bed appears to slope quite quickly near the edges so it is probably best to bite the bullet and anchor  in the deeper water but it is only c 6m at LAT with less than 4m rise at springs. O2 and Vodafone OK.
The anchorage, Millburn Bay, Gairsay.

Visited 2025.

Bay of Holland, Stronsay


A very large bay (hence no pictures as they are pretty meaningless) good shelter except from the south. I was worried as I came in as there was a residual southerly sea from a couple of days previous and it was quite big in the entrance but it was fine in the NW corner, perhaps moderated by the fish farm and a brisk NNE wind. For a while overnight I had a few quite large rolls when the wind died and it was a bit lively, by acceptable, at 07:00 when it hadn't been 12 hours earlier and he wind had returned. One problem is that once you are here you may be committed as the tides may not allow you to go elsewhere so be a bit sceptical if there has been south or south easterly winds and avoid if they are still blowing, even if you cared to venture into Stronsay Forth in those conditions.

O2 one bar data unusable for anything significant. Vodafone 2 bars, usable but slow.

Freshness Bay, Eday.

An excellent anchorage in the right conditions and could be a useful passage anchorage. The approach from the south on the ebb tide can be worrisome as you approach with 4 or 5 knots of tide threatening to sweep you past the entrance to  the Sound of Farray but don't panic as you approach the tide suddenly slackens but check the pilot for tidal streams as it only runs north into the sound from the south for 4 hours a tide. See my post for a video of my arrival in April 2025. Departure south was not an issue leaving on the start of the flood. See the pilot for more info.

Lovely clear water with visibility at least 20 metres., sand with some scattered weed but not a lot and it was easy to plant the hook into a clear spot looking through 6m of water. The bay is quite large so positioning would be important inn a stronger wind. There is a buoy marked for visitors but I did not check on it's last service date or weight limit. Vodaphone and O2 OK.

The anchorage, rather nice in these conditions but 
exposed to the north.
Visited 2025.

Otterswick, Sanday.

A very large anchorage with no protection from the wind, good protection from the sea outside but the seabed is gently shelving all round so you have to anchor a long way out, so in a strong wind it could get uncomfortable.

A good departure point for Shetland providing the tide is not going to sweep you out south of North Ronaldsay.

No pictures as I was too far from shore for any to be meaningful.

Visited in 2025.

Shetland.

Groutness Voe.

The pilot warns it is noisy from the airport, I would say very noisy mainly from big helicopters but when I was there flying stopped about 18:00 and did not start again till 08:00.

The chart shows little detail and there is an obstruction at 2.2 metres but no indication of the area covered, I didn't find it. Also a cable is shown on the Admiralty Chart (latest edition) but not on Garmin or SeaPro and there was no shore marker for it but with care you can squeeze in on the airport side well clear of the jetty. Vodafone and O2 fine.

Grutness anchorage and Sumbough Airport.
Visited in 2025, twice.

Bay of Fladdabister.


The anchorage is rather damned by faint praise in the pilot as “rather featureless” but it looks OK to me. There is more motion than I would like in a F4 southerly but not excessive, not somewhere to ride out a southerly gale and exposed to the east. O2 and Vodaphone OK (at least on a Sunday, see under Lerwick).

Fladdabister.

Gulber Wick.

A good anchorage just south of Lerwick, Well sheltered from winds with west in them and a bit more. Vodafone and O2 good.

Gulber Wick
Visited in 2025.

Lerwick.


Approaching Lerwick harbour. The entrance to the small boat dock is
to the left of the red building, the Albert dock is to the right of the large vessel.
Space is quite limited and in high season boats raft up. The pontoon in Albert Dock is the easiest to get onto but is noisy when wash comes in, is more exposed and even more public than the one in the small boat dock. Serious wash was an issue on a couple of occasions, try to get into the small boat dock if at all possible.

Toilets, showers etc. at the sailing club are a 7-8 minute walk, fairly basic facilities. One washing machine and one dryer. Berthing is refreshingly cheap iirc £35 for 2 nights. If possible avoid when big cruise ships are in as it will be manic in town.

The grocery nearby is not a lot of use for provisioning (except for tinned goods) coop, some distance away to be tried tomorrow.

At the time of writing O2 shows 4 bars but data is unusable, Vodafone not much better which is odd because yesterday a couple of miles away it was fine when there was a cruise ship in with thousands of mobile phone users - none today. Vodafone improved significantly after 18:00. Update: The internet is essentially unusable during the day, opening a facebook page may or may not happen, mid to late evening or early morning you can stream a video OK.

Anchorages, marinas and harbours:

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