REPORTAGE. In Orkney: among currents, whalers and… a glass of whiskey/4

Giovanni Porzio is one of Italy’s greatest reporters and a passionate sailor. In his book “The Sea is Never the Same” he has recreated the essence of reportage, that is, “reporting” from a voyage news, but also stories, feelings and images. Here is the first installment of his trip to the Ocardi Islands! (PART ONE HERE, PART TWO HERE, PART THREE HERE)

A sound of bagpipes wakes me up: Ecland is entering Kirkwall Harbor (“church bay” in the Viking idiom), 59° north latitude, the parallel of the southern tip of Greenland. The disturbance punctually arrived with its 40-knot winds, rain and sudden, brief glimpses of sunshine. Fog also descends at times, damp and cold, shrouding the stone houses facing the sea in a gray blandness and muffling noises as if under a heavy snowfall: the cries of seagulls, the bells of the cathedral, the hum of refrigerators on fishing boats.

But the wolfish weather does not prevent us from sampling haggis, Scotland’s robust national dish: sheep stomach stuffed with offal. And to wander around Orkney to discover the arcane world of this remote archipelago, among lonely moors, medieval towers, flocks of sheep, pints of dark beer and beaches where whale bones surface. They are mysterious islands, first appearing in the late 14th century on the shipgar chart of the Venetian brothers Nicolò and Antonio Zen, adventurous merchant navigators; but inhabited since the Neolithic period (as evidenced by the archaeological site of Skara Brae and the Ring of Brodgar ceremonial monoliths) and then became a refuge of the Pictish people fleeing Roman legions, an outpost of Christian missionaries, a land of conquest for the Vikings, and a feud disputed by rapacious bishops and Scottish nobles.

And finally, during the world wars of the twentieth century, strategic base of His Majesty’s fleet in the wide roadstead of Scapa Flow, which Churchill enclosed with two imposing barriers of concrete blocks-900,000 tons largely laid by Italian prisoners-and sunken wrecks. A barrage that did not prevent Captain Günther Prien, commander of the German submarine U-47, from torpedoing on a moonless night in October 1939 the British warship “Royal Oak,” whose bell is now displayed in an aisle of Kirkwall Cathedral.

Italians captured by General Montgomery’s British in Tobruk, Libya, and transferred to Orkney in 1942 left an indelible mark: the Italian Chapel, a small church built by welding together two Nissen sheds, stuccoing walls and facade, still in perfect condition, on the islet of Lamb Holm where Camp 60, the internment camp, stood. Before his passing in 1999, Domenico Chiocchetti had returned a couple of times to restore his frescoes: scenes from the Bible and a Madonna and Child.

The people of Orkney, sailors and farmers, cattle ranchers and former lighthouse keepers, are friendly and of few words. When Ecland’s engine stops (water in the diesel circuit and failure of the starter motor) the elderly fisherman who picks us up at the mooring does not want a penny: “Tomorrow,” he simply says, “it could happen to my boat.”

READ THE FIRST PART OF THE REPORT HERE.
READ THE SECOND PART OF THE REPORTAGE HERE.
READ THE THIRD PART OF THE REPORTAGE HERE.

Discover all of Giovanni Porzio’s reports in his book “The Sea is Never the Same!”