The Sands of Wideford @ Inganess Bay, Orkney

Today started well with a conversation with the Revd John ‘Jack” Muir, who had just retired two months ago from the Peedie Kirk URC in Kirkwall. The Peedie Kirk can be found near to St Magnus Cathedral. So, we went and had coffee at the St Magnus Café and had a great chat about various things about the Churches Together, the vast number of weddings and funerals that take place at the Cathedral by request of most island families today. The Cathedral is the Peoples’ Church and therefore no one church or minister has sole rights to taking a service there, any of the island’s church ministers can take a service at the Cathedral.

Later, as the cloud gathered pace, turning the sky into a blue-grey leaden skies making a great backdrop to the rest of Tankerness with the sun shining through the odd breaks in the clouds, which in turn illuminated the fields and building below that lay on the horizon. Then we had one heavy shower and the evening was clear again, and I was able to photograph this shipwreck in the bay. In September 1977, a survey was carried out by the Orkney Islands Council reporting that the site is described as the forward section of a tanker, some 61 metres long. The vessel was sunk early in World War II and that it was refloated and towed to its present position.

What I liked about this beached remains, was the lighting on the rusting hulk of what was left and the mill-pond waters just lapping onto the shore, as the tide receded for the evening. It was a peaceful evening walking on the beach, tiring to get close enough and not succeeding very well to photograph Arctic Terns. They are even more startled by movement than Oystercatchers.