The land of helpful harbourmasters

We planned to leave Wick on Tuesday morning, heading for Lossiemouth, leaving the first of our helpful harbourmasters. John, the assistant harbourmaster, met us at the pier head on the way in to give us directions to the inner harbour, then jumped in his car and was waiting to take our lines when we came on to the pontoon. He then took Debbie to the local shop to stock up with milk and bread and advised us on good places to see and eat in Wick, excellent service! While in Wick we found a good butcher, Sinclairs in MacArthur Street close to the harbour, we stocked up with vacuum packed meat.

We duly left Wick on Tuesday, expecting a Westerly wind. What we got was a South Westerly and the remains of the seas from the strong winds of the previous day. We were not making the course for Lossiemouth, struggled to maintain enough speed in the confused sea to get there in time for sufficient water in the entrance and the motion was horrible and made steering difficult and tiring. After about 8 miles we had had enough and turned around to head back to Wick and the berth we had vacated in the morning. As a reward for making a good call and turning back the Admiral allowed me to buy a bottle of the local Old Pulteney malt for the ships stores!

The weather forecast was better for Wednesday and we plotted alternative courses for Lossiemouth, Buckie and Whitehills, depending on the wind direction. We soon firmed up on Whitehills and had a good breeze from SSW allowing us to have full sail up.

East of the Jacky and Beatrice oil fields the wind became more variable, sometimes dropping light, sometimes heading us a long way off our direct course so we completed the second half of the passage with a mixture of sailing and motor sailing, with the last 2 or 3 miles into Whitehills under engine alone.

Multi rainbows approaching Whitehills.

On to our second helpful harbourmaster. We made contact with Bertie Milne, Whitehills harbourmaster, a little way out to check that he had berthing space for us. When we approached the harbour entrance he was there with directions and his camera "because you can't easily take pictures of your own boat". He was then at the pontoon to take our lines and, because it was getting late and was raining he took Debbie to the local fish and chip shop so we didn't have to cook on board! He left us his camera SD card so we could download the pictures, some of which are in this blog.

Approaching the pier head with rain clouds behind us courtesy of Bertie Milne.

The narrow entrance channel courtesy of Bertie Milne

The tight turn into the outer basin courtesy of Bertie Milne.

Approaching the berth courtesy of Bertie Milne.

Whitehills is a small, ex fishing harbour, with a narrow entrance channel and tight turns into the inner and outer basins. The inner basin has pontoon berths which were full of local boats who must get very good at boat handling in the confined spaces between the berths. The marina has good shower and washing facilities and a good laundry and crew room with microwave and kettle and comfortable chairs if you want to get away from the boat for a while! The harbour is owned and managed by the local community through elected commissioners and the whole place is very clean and tidy, as is the rest of the village.

Tight manoeuvring spaces in the inner basin!

As it has been blowing hard all day today we have caught up with the laundry and Bertie gave us a map of a coastal walk for this afternoon, which was very nice. The weather looks better tomorrow so we'll top up with diesel in the morning and see if we can get to Peterhead and then prepare ourselves for some longer 'hops' Southwards down the East coast.

Whitehills from the coastal path.

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