To Arbroath - from the motoring correspondent

Hullo there, youse  no hearrd from me before, it’s cos that posh yin wurrent let masel’  git a worrd in. But he’s awa to his bed, as he didna git much sleep last nicht. He tells meself that he was worri about the watter goin awa an trappin us all in the harbour. didna ken this sailin’ lark was as a prison sentence but then he shown me these photos like and there’s na water aboot the place where them boats are meant to be floatin. Anyways, that’s his excuse, I ken better - it was all them light ales he sank whilst celebrating wi’ us Scots the victory of our man Murray at tha' Wimbledon place. Although wha he’couldna have done in a real place like Glasgie I dinna ken.

 Anyway, whur was I. Och, yes, I have to tell you aboot our journey fra Anstruther to Arbroath this mornin’. What with worrin aboot the water and what not, our lad was awak at four o’clock (wuld you bleeve it?- on a guid nicht out you’d barely be in yer bed by thin) anyways he was up and rarin’ to go. 

Vagabond on the mud at low water

The motor (why he calls it Freddie is beyun me) wus fired up and we wur off. Inta the haa* I couldna see muir than aboot a hundred yards all round and it went on like that for hours and hours. The watter was flat calm. We had the hood up but  I couldna see through it becos the haa was landing all over it like midges on yer face in the Heelans in August. ‘It will have to come down’, he said. So it did and the haa landed on us instead, it wus so dreecht.

'Do youse ken whur  them heedlichts are, cos we ned those, it's sa bad' . 
We don't have headlights but you can turn on the navigation lights, if you like. Top switch on the panel.' 
'does yu mean them sparkie red, grun an whit things at the end o' the beeg stick?'

’Steer for those ripples’ he commanded and set about readying them sail things for raising. ‘Whas the point of them’, I asked, all polite like but tha wud nae stoppin  hisself. Oop tha wunt, leavin' all these bits of string lying aroun’ in the cockpit. ‘Wha’s all them for?’ I asked.

‘They are the reefing lines and we’ll have to coil them up, or else they might garrotte one of us’, he said.

The ripples came ta us and the sails all shook theselves an filled. ‘You can turn Freddie off now’, he said, so I did and I could na help noticing how quiet it all became.

The ripples went awa an I had to start Freddie again. For a wee little thing, he doesna do a bad job. Och- it’s only a single cylinder four stroke but it gives us a guid push when it’s needed.

I hope my regular reader will forgive me for allowing the motoring correspondent to say a few words – he’s been under control up till now but today he was in his element. We covered 26 miles, in fog most of the way, with Freddie barking in my ears all the time.

AIS warning of collision

The fog cleared every now and again. Once, it cleared in time for me to see an approaching vessel before I was frightened by the AIS system telling me of a danger vessel.

The gap!

Then is cleared as we need the northern coastline of the Dee estuary and I could see the ends of the harbour wall and the leading marks. We were no where in line with the marks, so had to steer away to get the correct bearing. We’d just got line up with it, when down came the fog again and we had to rely on the GPS to show us the way. Just before the bearing became really critical (for the entrance to the Arbroath harbour is through a narrow channel of deep water) the fog lifted. I called up the harbourmaster to ask permission to enter and he warned me to take special care as there was a dredger in the outer harbour.  He was right – there was just room for us to squeeze between it and the harbour wall and we were in, snug on a pontoon in the inner harbour. The Haar stayed with us all day and only disappeared around six o’clock in the evening. I don’t fancy going out in it again tomorrow.

*sea fog that is particulary prevalent on the east coast most of the time **

** he lies – only when an on shore wind occurs in late spring early summer. Quite where this fits in mid July is any ones guess

mmm