Day 36 - Arbroath to Stonehaven to Peterhead - 3rd/4th June, 2017

Day 34 - Arbroath to Stonehaven

We had a weather window for a couple of days so decided to leave Arbroath earlier than we planned. A shame really as this was a lovely little town.  The Bell Rock Lighthouse museum in the old Lookout tower was well worth a visit and the town was a couple of streets away from the harbour.

We just managed to get out before they were due to close the gates so I was a little worried about depth, but we had just over a metre under us so was fairly happy after we got to deep water.
The trip to Stonehaven of 31 miles started off in beautiful sunny weather. An hour later we were in thick fog with viz down to about 1/2 mile, which lasted for about 3 hours before clearing out at sea but we could see the fog all along the coast. It did clear again for an hour just before Stonehaven and then came back even thicker as we approached the unknown harbour. Eventually I could just see the pier head, with all its fishermen, at about 4 boat lengths.  Rather a challenging entrance with the close rocks either side of us, but at least we were again in a safe harbour albeit a little shallow in the outer harbour and rafted up to a Catamaran (Flying Pig) on the harbour wall. Then just as we tied up we were treated to a thunderstorm and torrential rain before the sun came out again for a lovely evening.

Ruins of Dunotter Castle - looking earie in the Fog - just South of Stonehaven

   
Lunar Sea in Outer Harbour Stonehaven

The boasted 100 different Whisky's in the 'Ship', Stonehaven
- weird photo I know - the bartender jumped in, but one for Steve!

Day 35 - Stonehaven to Peterhead

 The 'Flying Pig' wanted to leave at 09:00 so as we had to move to let him out so we decided to go as well.
The wind was Southerly about 12 knots and a gorgeous day, an ideal opportunity to fly the spinnaker - so out it came about a hour out of Stonehaven.  It flew very nicely and for the first time for 2 years I had aired it.  It lasted just over a hour before a thick black cloud threatened to dump its wind and rain on us.  A shame really because once it had cleared the same conditions prevailed as before but there was more of the same on the horizon so it stayed in its bag.

Proof for the disbelievers

All in all this was one of our better trips apart from the bit of rain and the entrance and berthing were trouble free.  A lovely 37mile passage past the busy harbour of Aberdeen.

Lunar Sea in Peterhead Marina

Because of the forecasted bad weather it looked like we may be here for a few days unfortunately we were quite a way from the town and there was not much around in the area. 

Time to do some more jobs on the boat. . . .



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