St Ninian’s Beach

27th June 2023

The sunset was at 10:39 pm last night, and it was a cloudless sky. There’s a few beach walkers at that time, though the light doesn’t fade much, until the official sunrise at 3:23 am.

I soon put off any thought of leaving this morning. It was a clear sky again at 7 am, though in the late morning it clouded over for the rest of the day. We took on the reverse hike to yesterday, getting the rocky headland views that were behind our backs yesterday. There weren’t many people around, but the ones I did see were a real variety..

A couple from Sierra Vista in Arizona, looking down from 1500 metres altitude to the Mexican border below. They were taking plenty of photographs, which they told me they showed with stories of their travels, to the folk of an old person’s community close by. A captive audience, perhaps that would put my writing on a bigger stage..

A couple from Berlin who had been fascinated by the story of St Magnus when on Orkney, so much so, they were staying in a hotel with that name in Lerwick. To them, I recommended the wonderful George Mackay Brown book, Magnus.

A couple from Tasmania who were hoping to spot Arctic Terns. Strangely there were none around today. Yesterday there were quite a few. We just about avoided talking cricket.

In the last bit of sun before the cloud arrived, I took a swim off the north side of the tombolo when we got back to it. Here, in the busy car park, it’s a better bet than the outdoor shower. It is really good fun swimming with your dog, something I last did in the Mediterranean off southern Spain, and I must do more of. Geographically, this is the North Atlantic, or the Norwegian Sea. It only becomes the Arctic Ocean north of the Faroes, which is the Greenland Sea. Anyway.. my point is, that it wasn’t very warm. Not that I had expected it to be. It was five minutes in, maybe even less, but a lot of fun.

A few other campervans and motorhomes rolled in during the afternoon, but almost all left again. A couple stayed overnight, and there was a guy, with his family, who like me, had been there two nights. He came over for a chat with his dog. He was from Lerwick, and said they often come across and spend a few nights in their camper. This time, before the schools break up next week, when it will be busier.

By the time we took an evening walk around the tombolo it was windy and overcast, with a significant drop in temperature from the morning’s mid-teens to about 10C. Some locals come to exercise as they did yesterday; a gang of swimmers with wet suits, a group of kite flyers, a family of kayakers, and a noisy bunch on a jet-ski. There is still the odd walker at midnight, in the fading light.