Arbroath to Peterhead

We thought we might have been suff'rin' from 'arbour fever! 'arbour fever rots men and boats and we had been in Arbroath for so long, or so it seemed. And we were all a bit fed up with sharing the one (disabled) shower/toilet where the shower head won't stay up, so you have to hold it yourself or put up with it spraying just your tummy! (I must make clear at this point that we weren't sharing it at the same time!). You can bend down if you want your head showered too! So you can see it was time to move on. But was the weather suitable?

We departed Arbroath at 0730 after having to track down the harbour master to get back our deposit on our marina key fob! It was an irritating delay when we really needed to get on. We exited the marina to a reasonably flat sea and fair winds, but during the course of the day we saw large waves appear and then fade away, and winds varying from 5 knots to about 25 knots. Mostly the rain stayed away, and we made good progress motor-sailing with double reefed mainsail……until the last few hours into Peterhead, just after we passed Bram Stoker's 'castle' on the cliff. Was that symbolic? The wind whipped up, the seas built, and then wind was dead on the nose so we dropped the main and continued under engine alone. The rain blew horizontally and was painful as it hit our eyes and faces. The mist rolled in and visibility decreased to only a few hundred yards, and the large waves and wind did their best to halt our progress. Speed was down to only 3 knots despite increased engine revs, as we worked our way finally into Peterhead harbour where we were mightily relieved to enter calmer water.

During the day the catch on Rob’s door somehow got broken (HHmmm) and also the chef left the cover partly over the cooker and burnt the cover whilst cooking! (The fire alarm had gone off earlier in the day and we couldn’t work out why).

More bad weather is forecast for tomorrow!

Joke of the day:

There were three men out sailing, when it began to storm. Their boat was wrecked by the storm, and washed up on a deserted Island. They started to walk along the beach and found a bottle. They picked it up and began rubbing the sand off, when all of a sudden, a genie popped out. The Genie said "Since you have released me from the bottle, I will grant each of you one wish.” The first man said, "I really miss my wife and grandchildren. I wish I were back home." Poof! He was gone. The second man said, "This is great! I wish I were in Hawaii on the beach, with a good hot meal to eat." Poof! He was gone, too! The third man looked around and said, "You know, it's lonely around here, I really miss those guys."

Roger doing battle with the elements

Trying to find Peterhead harbour in the murk!

The door catch that 'came away' off Rob's cabin door. Hmmm. Robbb???

Who was the chef who did this? Lets see now - it wasn't me, it wasn't Roger, it wasn't Jan....that leaves....err, hhmmm, errr....