Fraserburgh to Fraserburgh

Fraserburgh Harbour
Day 3 of many and we are heading for Whitehills, 18 miles away and our next destination. Weather looked reasonable, even though we would have tide against us it shouldn't take more than four hours.

Reluctantly we left our hotel just before 9  and planned to have breakfast on the boat and be away as soon as possible. We left our berth at 9.20 and turned to port (left) towards Whitehills. The wind and tide were against us and a very choppy sea. We struggled on for about an hour making very slow progress and I suggested we turn back. Josh in his usual style said "It will be alright once we get past the next headland, the sea will calm down and we will start to make progress." Of course you all know by now that this didn't transpire, in fact the wind increased and was gusting 30 knots at times and when we got hit head on by a wave, our speed went down to 1 knot. Two hours later we had struggled to do 6 1/2 miles. "I am going below to make a cup of tea and a biscuit and when I come up we need to make a decision" I said. My vote was to turn back as at this rate we had another few hours to go and the tide didn't turn in our favour until 4pm and we would be there by then hopefully. I came up clutching a cup of tea (not sure how I managed to make one) and a ginger biscuit and at this point probably looking a bit disgruntled. I made my thoughts known and Josh said he would give it a bit longer and then decide ( ladies as you know it has to be the man's idea!) After two and a half hours from when we had left Josh swung the boat around and we were heading back to Fraserburgh, which was still clearly visible. It was like a different world, the wind was behind us, the tide was with us and we surfed the waves, lovely. We got back in 40 minutes from the point where we had turned around, which had taken two and a half hours to get to! We looked back at the headland which we had struggled to reach and the fog had started to drift out to sea so I was very glad we had decided to turn back.

I was a happy bunny, although looking at the weather forecast it looks as if we will be in Fraserburgh until Tuesday. Watch this space for the next instalment.

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