Still in Whitehills

 

Last year we had a month of north-easterly winds at around this time. In the end we gave up trying to sail anywhere, especially the Netherlands, and drove to Germany. Meanwhile Scotland had gorgeous weather. This year the positions are different. Since we sailed into Whitehills we have had westerlies of between F4 and F7 every day. Given that when we came in here the wind was only W3-4 and we could still make very little headway into it, Whitehills is looking like a very attractive spot.

Bow Fiddle Rock

Much of Peaky Blinders was filmed in Portsoy. This marks the spot where the fictitious character Michael died.... more than most real people get!

Erika's brother-in-law and his wife have been incredibly hospitable, giving us dimmer on the night we came in, taking us for a lovely walk from Cullen (where Cullen Skink soup comes from) to the Bow Fiddle Rock, and we all had dinner together at the pub in the Whitehills. They even offered us both beds, which Erika took up but I felt I'd rather stay on board. She still wasn't feeling 100%, and once it was clear that we wouldn't be going much further for a while she decided to head home via a flight from Inverness on Tuesday 4 June. She was smitten by yet another appalling headache at the airport, managed to get home and saw her GP on Wednesday, who sent her straight to hospital for tests. Several scans later she was told that nothing visible was wrong and she had been suffering "thunderclap" headaches - which funnily enough was my first thought, although I know nothing about them. Anyway a great relief that she is ok, and I will attach a health warning to the offending lifejacket.

I've now been here almost a week and I can't really work out where the days have gone. From most points of view this is an excellent spot: 240v power to the boat, good water (I ran off all the water tainted in Tayport and refilled here), fast wifi which enables me to watch iPlayer in the evenings, good toilet facilities, Bosch washing machines for £2 and tumble drier for £1, and even a rest room with toaster, kettle and microwave. Shelter in the inner harbour is ok, although suddenly more exposed at high water, and today is springs so we rise right up to the level of the toilet block. Two bigger Najads are in the outer harbour and a lot less comfortable. Today is Saturday, and during the night we had the strongest winds yet, with almost 35kt on the wind indicator at high water. I have now deployed every inflated fender that we have in the locker and about six mooring lines. The only damage so far is that one of the new white fenders is turning gradually pink as it rubs against next-door's red stripe. 

I've had drinks a couple of times with the crew of Olivia (Najad 395) and hope to meet the crew of Starfish, which came in yesterday, tonight. All are flying CA burgees, which is nice. A smaller vessel, Hunter's Grace, came in on Thursday and left on Friday - evidently much tougher than me. And yesterday I had lunch with Erika's sister-in-law and their daughter Kirsty, who is starting her 21st birthday party any moment now.

Outer berths at Banff. The chart shows it as a drying harbour but in fact vessels drawing up to 1.8m can lie afloat in some spots

On Thursday I ran to Banff, toured the tourist spots, visited the harbour which has fairly recently reopened after extensive repairs to the sea wall, and bought a few things in Tesco. Then I walked back because running into the wind with even a few things on my back proved a bit too challenging.

And in between all that I have been tidying and fixing on the boat. Water was trickling out of the toilet bowl and after a long look at many complex options I discovered the simple solution: the diverter valve to the holding tank is in the cockpit locker, and in the bumpy seas the liferaft, which was next to it, had nudged the valve open just a bit. Duh. I tidied out the cockpit locker and found a number of things which I should have left at home, including the oars for the old dinghy, and several more things I had forgotten about, including two patent buoy-catching thingies. I cleaned out the gas locker for possibly the first time ever, and discovered that the gas bottle stand, which is frequently in an inch or so of water, is rotting badly underneath. It will do until I get woodworking tools, though. I have cleaned more teak and tidied the aftmost starboard-side top locker, which now contains most things in plastic bags. I have started looking at places to go if we ever get through the Caledonian Canal and  deciding where to leave the boat in July. I have even done a bit of work.

I have updated this blog to be more viewable on a mobile device, but in the course of doing so have introduced lost of nasty adverts, lost the page titles and the "where is Kalessin" widget, and hyperlinks have become invisible. I will try again with a different option, but it's a very clunky process.

Alex and David (dear friends and next crew) are coming up on the sleeper to Inverness, arriving on Wednesday 12th. It's possible that I can get to Lossiemouth that day, which would save them a very long bus ride here. Otherwise the 13th is looking consistently quiet. Whitehills is lovely but I really don't want to spend the whole summer here.

Sea I don't want to go sailing in...