A long day but a good day. It had been drizzling overnight so all the decks were wet and it didn’t look particularly inviting at 4 in the morning. However it also seemed calm and for once as we poked our nose out, it was! In fact there wasn’t enough wind to sail for the first half of the journey…. the first time since leaving Troon! The benefits are flat ish water and a bacon and egg butty on the go. Quite lonely out in the middle of the Moray Firth. Just us and about a hundred off shore wind turbines. This is Beatrice . I Love the way wind farms have names like boats. We also passed two decommissioned oil rigs. The wind picked up to 10 knots enough for us to sail and very fortunately was coming from the NW ( and therefore behind us) so we could actually sail straight toward Whitehills. Whitehills is only a small marina with a narrow and shallow entrance ……with a right angle bend thrown in. We had phoned ahead and at least knew that we were to go onto the visitor pontoon but still quite tricky manoeuvring in such a small space; J did it perfectly and we gently landed with the help of some people from another yacht. Unbeknown to us the Harbour master was taking photos of us and another boat on its way in. Nice to have! Usually our pictures just look outwards. I will try and attach them! Such a friendly welcome in this tiny beautiful marina. It used to be a a busy fishing port until the changes in the fishing industry which happened last century in the 60 ‘s and the 80’s particularly; meant small boat fishing dwindled and the harbour was turned into a leisure craft marina. Although there still are 3 small commercial fishing boats that fish from here, where there used to be dozens. The big boats in bigger ports can now bring in catches of white fish totalling £2,000,000 a day. But what of the rest…….
We spent a very pleasant evening catching up with Jon Bona, Julian’s godson who lives not far from here with his family, and works on the oil rigs of the North Sea. On land at the moment fortunately coinciding with our visit, and we had a fantastic meal at The sea field arms hotel.
What I learned today………all about the sad decline of the fishing industry in this part of the world. ( And probably everywhere else) Less livelihoods supported, more fat cats environmentally unfriendly , and compromising animal welfare , but that’s just my opinion.
Sue x
Leaving Wick 0520 
Beatrice oil rig 
Beatrice windfarrm 
Tape to remind J that his damp boot is in the engine-room 
Seabird frenzy 
Aerial picture 
In whitehills
Angelique 