Our Orkney Island Dance Adventure

On the ferry, leaving Scrabster, with Dunnet Head in the background.
Dunnet Head is the most-northerly point on the British mainland.

We started taking dance lessons last January. I have written about that before, so I will not cover that part again, except to say we have been learning Smooth Waltz and Modern Jive, from which American Swing comes from.   I am happy to say that in September, our little group of dancers was promoted from “Beginners” to “Improvers.”  😊   And in being promoted, we joined another, established, group of Improvers, which means we have a lot more dancers in our class now. That makes it all the more fun.

Leaving Scrabster harbor

Me, Mike, Steve, Lexi, Gary and Lee - after we got in the calm water

If you read the post about our dancing a while back, you will recall that there are regular opportunities to dance here. Our instructor, Steve, arranges for almost-monthly Live Jive dances at the Park Hotel on Sunday afternoons. There is always a live band – the Barracuda Boogie Band – and often a couple of singers as well. 

Last month, there was a reunion of band members from the US. It seems that the Barracuda Boogie Band leader (Jim) was part of a band in high school in the US. They were pretty good and pretty popular. But after graduation, they broke up and haven’t played together for 50 years. At their 50 year reunion (!!), they played together as though they had never parted, and they had such a good time that Jim invited them to come to Scotland and play with his band here. So they did!  It was really wonderful.

Beautiful small town of Stromness!

In an effort to bring the joy of dancing to the masses, Steve teaches dance here in Thurso and also in Tain (a small town down the A9 on the way to Inverness) and just this past year, he expanded that to Orkney. To do that, he travels over by ferry every weekend to do back-to-back dance classes on Sundays and has received quite a good response from the residents there. 

While taking classes and learning to dance is fun, the whole idea is to actually dance at real dances, right?  So every month, he encourages them to take the ferry over for the Live Jive dances – and some people have actually come!

Now the Orkney Group are putting on their own dances. They call them “Let’s Dance.” The first one was held last summer on a Sunday afternoon, like the Live Jives, and  the Orkadians encouraged us to travel over, but there was little response, if any, because Sunday afternoons means not being able to get a ferry back until early Monday morning and that interferes with people’s jobs. (I know, I know -you’re saying, “Isn’t that an issue as well for the Orcadians?”  And the answer would be “yes." I have no good answer for that one.)

In September, the Orkney group scheduled “Let’s Dance 2” on a Saturday night and even offered to put people up for the night, in an effort to encourage us main-landers to come over. And it worked. (Mostly because it was a Saturday night)  Steve also offered to teach 3 Salsa classes. And since Mike and I were signed up to start Salsa classes in September, we thought we could get a head-start on them.

Always up for an adventure - we went to Orkney just for a dance. It was held at the Standing Stones Hotel in Stenness, near Stromness.  I mention this location because the Standing Stones of Stenness is a stop on the tourist route around Orkney. It was pretty cool because the stones were visible across the loch (lake). We just don’t see things like that at home in Washington.  And yet, they are every-day things in farmers’ fields here.

The Standing Stones of Stenness

A zoomed-in picture of  The Standing Stones from the hotel and across the loch

We have been over to Orkney twice. Both times on coach tours. 

 Mike and I went last summer and then again this summer with John, Mary, Leslie and Kathryn in August. 

On that coach tour, we saw all the major historical sites – the Standing Stones of Stenness, the Ring of Brodgar, Scara Brae, the Scappa Flow, the Churchill Barriers, the Italian Chapel and the towns of Stromness and Kirwall. It’s a tour that is definitely worth taking, especially if you only have time for the highlights on Orkney. However, there is much more to see and do on Orkney, which, sadly, we have not done. Going over for this dance made us realize we might have enjoyed spending a little more time there just driving around.

But like much of the travel here in the highlands, it was not simple to plan. If we went as foot passengers on the ferry, in order to get around on Orkney, we would have to take the bus or a taxi to get us around. We didn’t know at the time if we would stay for all of the Salsa classes or drive around Orkney instead. Taking a car would give us more options.

Mary (Mike's sister) and John (BIL) at the Standing Stones

Taking the car on the ferry is quite pricey (plus the cost of the hotel). But an Orkney resident was able to get us all 30% discounts for the ferry, including the car, so problem solved. The ferry left from Scrabster, which is just right here in the Thurso Bay, meaning a drive of just minutes to the terminal.

Some Orcadian dancers offered to put us up for the night, and several dancers took advantage of that offer, but we learned that we could book a room on the ferry that included breakfast, for a very reasonable price, and thought that it sounded like great fun. We hadn’t done that before. We just had to be on the ferry by 11:30 pm.

Now, part of the adventure was going to be the crossing itself. You see, Hurricane Florence had hit the east coast of the US the week before. It often happens that when a big storm hits over there, that the after-effects of the storm will hit here about a week later, with an increase in rain and high winds. And indeed, that is what we had that week. Now, if the winds are too high, the sea will get difficult to cross and we surely did not want to be sick from the travel. So, everyone watched the weather closely. Our dance instructor, Steve, even sent out a weather/water website that surfers use to show how the weather would affect the sea – all in an effort to encourage us to travel.

Passing the Old Man of Hoy 

The night before going, the winds were high. Think: Tri City winds.  Saturday morning came, and the winds were still blowing. There were whitecaps all over the Thurso Bay with good waves rolling onto the beach.  But that did not deter us! 

I will tell you that the crossing was a fun adventure. For me at least. Not so much for one of our friends, who was as grey as a sheet through most of it. The swells were huge in the middle of the crossing!  Like 15-20 foot swells! (at least that’s huge to me!) Everyone had to hold onto their coffee cups as the ship really rolled from side to side. Once I tried to walk across the floor and found I was actually walking uphill! When I looked ‘down’ the floor and out the window, all I could see was water because the boat was practically on its side. (that might be somewhat of an exaggeration). But they looked like giant swells to me. 

I supposed it could have been frightening, but it was exciting to me only because it was a big ferry – AND because I was not ill.  That excitement only lasted 30-45 minutes and then the ferry took the longer, alternative (calmer) route between the islands to get out of the rough water. The ride was pretty even-keeled from there in.

One of the Salsa classes

The day of dancing began with 3 classes of Salsa. The first would be an absolute beginner class, followed by a class that would build on the skills learned in the first class, followed by a class that put them all together. Mike figured out that we learned 9 moves that day.

Salsa class

What fun it was!  There were 16-20 people in each class, and because Steve is such a good teacher, everyone learned quickly and had fun learning. In Steve-style of teaching, we changed partners every little bit, so I got to dance with 8-10 different people. Steve even took his turns leading, which is great, because dancing with him means the followers get to learn what the moves should really feel like and then get to carry that information on to their partners, which helps them learn to be better leaders. Yes, it can be awkward dancing with strangers at first, but it is an effective technique.  It also helps in breaking down barriers and making friends.

I could not manage to take a picture of the dancing without lots of blurring.
This one is the best of the batch.
Pictured center are Lee and Gary. 

So, after about 4 hours of dancing all afternoon, we were invited back to an Orcadian’s home for a supper of curry dishes. I must say that they were terrific! (I'm hoping to get the recipes) We’ve had a little curry recently. I made one recently that turned out to be too hot to eat -even for me! - so we gave the remains away to another friend who enjoys the heat.

After a time of relaxing and good conversation and laughter through dinner, we changed into our nice dancing clothes and went back to the hotel for the actual dance. The room was very festive, with its tulle on the ceiling and fairy lights.  I think it is always set up this way to accommodate weddings and receptions and the like. But at night, it was really lovely. 

The band was called The Polkadots and only made up of 3 members, but they sure had a big sound.

Front: Lexi and Tim
Back: Sandra, Su, Mike, Me, Lee, Gary and Steve

One of things on my bucket list while here in Scotland is to see the Northern Lights. We have certainly had opportunities to see them, but we have not actually seen them. Usually when the forecast is good for seeing them, there is cloud cover when we go to bed.

Once, my friend texted me at 11:15 pm to see if I was still awake because they were visible from her house just outside of town. If I had known, we would have jumped out of bed and ran right out there. But unfortunately, I didn’t know until 6 the next morning. 

I hoped that we might see them while in Orkney. It’s that much further north and there’s even less light from towns than in Thurso.  And as it turned out, the indicator said it was likely. So, at 11:00 pm, after the dance and on our way to the ferry, we stopped on a hill outside of Stromness and looked. But no luck. If there were any there, they were not visible to us. We were told that if we used a 10-second delay on our camera, the camera might actually pick them up.  But we can buy great pictures anywhere. What we want is to see them with our actual eyes.  So, sadly we went on to the ferry. It would have been one more lovely memory of that fun trip.

The Hamnavoe - the ferry

Staying on the ferry was fun. The room was rather like a cruise ship and had everything we needed – including a shower, toilet, a hot pot for tea and coffee, and even a TV. The stay even included breakfast. We got to sleep in and not have to worry about getting up early and missing the ferry. The beds were fairly comfortable and the water pressure in the shower was better than some hotels we have stayed in.

Our room for the night

The crossing on the way back was much smoother than the day before. And this time, we got to take the normal route, which took us past The Old Man of Hoy. Hoy is one of the Orkney islands and The Old Man is a stack that sits off the steep coast. It surprised me at how small it looked close-up, since we can see it all the way from Thurso Bay.

The Old Man of Hoy. It's larger than it looks. 

Dancing here is one of the things we are going to miss a lot when we go home. We have made some lovely friends through our classes and through the dances.

There is a big dance weekend here in November called “North Fest.” It’s the first of, hopefully, an annual dance event of 3 days in 3 different venues here in Thurso. There will be 3 days of classes during the day followed by dances with live bands every night. I’m glad we get to be here for it.

You know I like signs. I like this one because it shows the word "whilst."
I'm not sure I have ever seen that word in print, and yet it is everywhere here.