Message in a Bottle

Monday 28^th July 2014

11:37am

The Island of Sanday, Scotland, UK

The ferry drops me off on the south west side of the island. Incidentally this is about as far away as I could be from any of the cairns. In fact, when I was first looking at a map of Sanday, I thought – this is the part of the island I won’t need to visit. With a small sigh, I hop on Ethel and together we begin the long bike ride across the island.

According to the sign I just passed, the Village of Lady is only 8¾ miles away. Luckily the road seems to be mostly flat, or at least more so than Hoy. As I ride along, it doesn’t take me long to notice why they call this Island Sanday. There are beaches everywhere made up of surprisingly white sand. The island is long and narrow and so as I ride I can often see the ocean on one side or both.

The day is overcast, and it’s the sky and the distinctly Orcadian scent of Wisconsin-like farm fields spliced with the salty scent of nearby sea water which reminds me that I am not in the Caribbean.

The 8¾ miles to Lady pass much quicker than I might have expected. I consider looking for a tourist information centre, but decide it’s not worth the bother. I have a good map, and my GPS has those maps loaded into it. What would I need to ask directions for? – I think as I continue down the road.

Eventually I come across a car park, which has a map outlining some of the sites around the Cata Sand. From the looks of this map, if I take this path ahead, I should make it to Quoyness chambered tomb in no time.

I begin walking down the path, which is great, until the path abruptly stops. I have to hop a barbed wire fence, a task at which I’m becoming increasingly skilled. I pull out my GPS in order to make sure I’m on the right track. As it would turn out, I’ve overshot Quoyness. I’m on a peninsula called Tres Ness, but there is a cairn at the very end of this peninsula so I continue on. Stubborn could be my middle name.

It’s about this time that my audio book completes, and I am forced to switch to another, a nauseously sappy third person teen aged love story. It’s this symphony of dribble that I have to listen to as I continue on trudging through the heather.

After hopping yet another fence and working hard to not trip on the uneven ground, I start to ask myself if there is an easier way to do this. The answer is simple: go to the beach. From here I see an easily accessible stretch of the Cata Sand and I make a b-line for it.

The Cata Sand (It's whiter in person)

The hiking here is much easier going, and after a few hundred yards, I’m able to cross over to the other side of the peninsula. Ahead of me is the Bay of Newark… and I’m not exactly prepared for this. This… this isn’t Orkney. This is a scene that can only belong to a small caye in the middle of the Caribbean.  There is nothing but the ocean before me, and a long gently curving sliver of soft white sand. The waves gently lap the shore, and the air smells like the sea and beach.

I didn't take this picture because it was cloudy when I was hear. However, had the weather been better this is what the beach would have looked like. I didn't have a good picture to show so I thought you wouldn't mind seeing the place at it's best.

If my Mom lived in Orkney, this is where she would want to be – I think as I continue down the peninsula towards the cairn. After a little while, the beach transforms into a field of wave rounded slabs of thin stone. Despite being the world’s largest collection of ready made skipping stones, they also serve as one of the most precarious surfaces to walk on. For this reason, my eyes are glued to the ground.

In another life, it seems, I used to hike along the Esk River in search of antique pottery shards. My eyes became trained to lock onto interesting objects around my feet. It’s for this reason, I believe, that I see this:

I almost walk past it. In my head it goes something like this: rock, rock, shell, rock, rock, rock, animal bone, rock, shell, shell, bit of rope, rock, rock, rock, bottle, huh that bottle has a bit of paper in it.. 

is that? 

No... 

Really‽ 

Yes! 

A message in a bottle‽ 

People actually send those‽

So I immediately unscrew the cap and read the note.

The note reads:

My name is Manaw. I am nearly 15 years old. I live in Strandebarm. I like to play fotball and go skiing. I love my best friends. If you would like to write back or get contact with me: (a Norwegian phone number)
snapchat: (I'm not going to list that either)
 

(This is a task in my english class, so I speaks norwigian normally).

It's very boring in Strandebarm, I hope you will answer me someday!

The letter concludes with the smiley face you see.

This is a map of Sanday. The red line is my route which starts at the red dot near Hacks Ness (the red dot is the ferry terminal) and goes all the way to the cairn at the tip of Tres Ness. The orange X close by is where I found the message in a bottle.