The weather was lovely and the small group of people congenial although I had some difficulty understanding many of them. Some, I could tell were tourists but most were natives of Mainland (the largest of the Orkney Isles). And these I found entirely incomprehensible. I caught a few Scottish words but the Orcadians spoke with a Scottish accent but their sentences ended with an upswing and their speech was soft.

Although Orcadian locals do not admit it readily the Orkney Isles are part of Scotland but the residents insist they are Orcadian not Scottish.

Norway and Denmark were united when in 1468 their close contact with the islands was broken. Christian became king at this time and when he realized that the 60,000 florins he had promised as dowry for his daughter was more than he could or was willing to pay he pledged the additional 50,000 florins as title to Orkney. Whether this story is factual or merely a ploy to reduce tension between the two countries is still disputed. Nevertheless when later offers were made to redeem the islands the offers were refused. Scotland knew when it had a good deal.

As with trains and busses travels we had experience throughout Britain, the schedule for the six mile ferry passage ran late. As we boarded I asked how long it would take to get there. The answer was, "it depends". And it did. The Pentland Firth is considered one of the most dangerous waters in Britain and this day it confirmed that statistic in spades.

Due to the meeting of the Atlantic and the North Sea the waters churned instead of flowing. There were two choices we were told, depending on the sea ... the outer route or the inner one. Even now I have no idea which one the St. Ola took that day from Scrabster to Stromness but it took us almost four hours. Four hours which I spent on deck wrapped around a post. I have never been seasick in my life and by the time we arrived at Stromness I was completely wasted.

The Hudson Bay company contributed to Orkney's fame as the men that the Canadian firm hired were reputed to be industrious and accepted less money than other workers. At one time it was said no fewer than 75% of the entire work force at the Hudson's Bay Company in Canada were from the Orkneys.

Stromness is a colorful town with gabled ended houses on the edge of the water. The Stromness Hotel was a handsome old four storied building. After we had registered we found our way to what they considered to be the second story. (In the British Isles the first floor is the ground floor) making our room on the second story. We were fortunate enough to have a room facing the dock and were so elated that we immediately opened the window so we could smell the sea.