Day 37 - Peterhead to Fraserburgh - 6th June, 2017

Peterhead to Fraserburgh - 6th June, 2017

It looked like we had a small weather window with nearly all the right conditions to transit the notoriously horrible Rattray Head, ideally you need both tide and wind in the direction you're going. We had the right tide but the wind of 10 knots was ESE not exactly ideal but do-able. We were told by 'Flying Pig' that a lot of boats end up in Peterhead for days waiting for the right conditions.
We left at 14:00 with slack tide around 14:30 and 7 miles to the Head.  It was foggy (viz. 3/4 mile), drizzling and at Peterhead entrance swell about a metre.  Not pleasant but I could see that the sea wasn't so bad where we were going. The 'chop' left us, although the swell stayed with us.
Julia decided to hide her head under the Duvet.
Rattray Head about a mile off

At 15:20 we were abeam of Rattray Head we still had about a mile viz. in the fog and drizzle and the swell had increased to 2m but not entirely unpleasant.  The worse part was trying to sight all the partly submerged fishing pots in the swell so that we could avoid them.  At least the bulk of them were a bright orange except that you couldn't see them submerged due to the tide until you were right upon them.
Once past the Head the swell went back to its gentle one metre, which never really abated, we continued our progress at over 6 knots thanks mainly to the tide.
We got into Fraserburgh at 17:00 and found our way through the labyrinth of small harbours onto a nice pontoon in the South Inner Harbour.
Julia was not a happy bunny with the conditions and so it feels very guilty to say that I thoroughly enjoyed our short exhilarating trip up from Peterhead.  What's more I think even Lunar Sea had enjoyed the challenging sea.  It's a pity the sun wasn't out or we could see something other than the swell.
We shall be here for at least 2 days because of the forecasted stormy winds but at least we were further North now and past what is potentially the worst part of our journey.
Inverness is now less than 80 miles away, just 2 or 3 days, so lets hope for some Julia type conditions. . . . . .

Comments

  1. Cousin Sue7 June 2017 at 02:59

    I've been following you on my Google maps. Had my eyes opened to the sort of conditions you can meet right outside the harbour wall! Here's hoping for calmer conditions for you now. Xxx

    ReplyDelete

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