Now for some serious mapping

I have a new favourite waste of time:
Mapping Northland, chapter by chapter.
The prologue has just received its map in the author's notes.

Comments

[Chyre]

Hey Celefin, have you ever been to the Orkney Islands yourself? Or are you just working off of various maps?

Also, has anypony tried swimming out to one of the smaller islands? Some of them look very close to the mainland on these maps. In particular, it looks like you could make it to Hoy Island in the southwest without too much trouble, especially if you stopped on Graemsay along the way.

[Chyre]

Also, I think "mapping" needs to be a fanfiction slang term, somehow related to "shipping".

[Celefin]

4494712 Hiya! Yes, I've been to Orkney myself and walked all of the streets I've so far described, especially in Stromness. I've also hiked across much of the west Mainland and Hoy. And of course I went there with the NorthLink ferry.

Swimming to Hoy, even via Graemsay, is tricky. The problem is the presence of strong tidal currents that make a crossing dangerous even for small boats, especially in the narrow part between Graemsay and the south of Stromness. You have to go around the east side of Graemsay in a wide arc. There's also not much of anything on Hoy in terms of resources and Scapa knew that.
All of this applies to Rousay and Shapinsay to the north as well.

Now for returnees on these islands, that's another matter of course. Considering the fact that all four islands have a combined population of just under a thousand people though...

Here's the view from above Hoy over Graemsay and the Hoy Sound. Stromness is visible in the upper left.
upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/24/Orkney_Graemsay_seen_from_Hoy.jpg

[Celefin]

4494807 Definitely