It was a foggy day and there was a foggy dew. We were heading south from Kirkwall to St Margaret’s Hope to get the ferry to Gills Bay which is close to John o’Groats.
Scapa Flow was established as the base for the British Grand Fleet in 1905. When Winston Churchill was First Lord of the Admiralty in about 1912, in order to compete with the German Kaiser’s building programme, he managed to get the British Parliament to build a large number of ships including the Dreadnaught Battleships. This is documented in a book I am just reading "Churchill Warrior: How a military life guided Winston’s finest hours" by Brian Lavery. The Grand fleet sailed from Scapa Flow prior to the Battle of Jutland in 1916. Although that battle did not create a victory and the British lost more ships than the Germans it resulted in the German Fleet never making it into the high seas during WWI. After WWI the German Fleet was interned there while awaiting a decision of the 1919 Versailles peace conference. However after nearly a year the German commander ordered "the grand scuttle" as it was called and 53 of the 74 ships of the Imperial German Navy’s fleet were scuttled.
In WWII a German U Boat entered Scapa Flow and sank the British Battleship HMS Royal Oak. After this the defences were strengthened by building the Churchill Barriers which we cycled along in the fog before getting to the ferry at St Margaret’s Hope.
This is a block ship placed as party of the defences of Scapa Flow.
One of the Churchill Barriers.
A fairly young foal seen along the way.
The ferry to Gills Bay.
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