Whitehills and no pictures

Three or four days have passed since the last entry and it's possible that my regular reader (s?) may be wondering what's happening. (On the other hand, they may be much more interested in the current test match or the state of protests in  the Luis Vutton cup *). You may also recognise that my  typing is even worse the usual - I'm using the ipad.......

Vagabond and I are now at Whitehills, a pleasant little fishing harbour converted to a Marina with some European ( eg ours ) development money.We arived at about 15:00, having left Peterhead at the eye watering time of 05:30. We left the marina, Freddie doing his stuff, hoisted the sails in the harbour and left.....into thick fog.This was the fourth day of sailing (well, motoring really) in fog.

You'l have read about the first day from the pen of the motoring corespondent. He is now under lock and key in the forepeak, pending a management decison on the size of his pay off and whether we can get away with not telling the board of trustees about our plan**

We left Arbroath at 05:00, in haar, so that the tide whisked us to Stonehaven. by just after midday (it's springs and the currents on this coast reach almost two knots, so you have to make sure you catch them in the right direction). We nestled against the harbour wall in Stonehaven, using some spare fishing boat ropes to cope with the 4 metre tidal range ***.

It's a lovely harbour, one part dries out, the other doesn't. It has a deep stone wall, inset with ladders, against which we were held by these long, thick and heavy pieces of rope.

A five o'clock start for Peterhead, to catch the tide and the fog. Another day of Freddie.

Peterhead has a well founded Marina, surrounded by industry. Not a place we wanted to linger. Hence the early start today.

Now, I've not told you about the Dutchmen, the author and his motorboat, or the harbour masters and their hobbies or hosts of other stuff, but my main course has arrived and you will all have to  wait for a further installment....

And, of course, for the pictures.


Explanations of jokes etc


* originally the Americas Cupa sailing competition
** sounds familiar?
*** range = the rise and fall of the tide