Peterhead Marina is a lovely little place, its one of the cheapest we have stayed in (same price as a mooring buoy in Tobermory!) and the showers were free – and very clean!
I've got to steer the boat out of here - but grateful at this point for little wind!
Taken from the marina - you can see Peterhead in the distance
The marina office has a landscaped area around it which is really pretty
they even have a palm tree. In fact, I have seen many palm trees in Northern Scotland and they are nicely intact – better than the ones in England which our cold winter have killed off!
Palm Trees? In Scotland?? Northern Scotland?????
Did you read my blog from yesterday? Well, a nice lye in this morning, and John says he has had a good nights sleep, but I think he has spent the night reading his book to find out what the name of the little fellow who popped onto the helm right in front of him yesterday afternoon was.
He brought the book to me at breakfast and showed me it was a “Wheatear” (you have to pronounce the “Wheat” as if you are blowing candles out – he did!) The derivation of wheatear is white “arse” ! Honestly – thats what it says in the book – I didn’t realise bird watching books could be so much fun! John says this was such a moment for him, he describes it as it being just like us seeing an orca! Apparently, you rarely see a wheatear, but particularly not at such close quarters! Such a shame no one else was around to see it
Its a lovely little book, and I think John should do what it says on the tin and keep it in his pocket just in case a bird should land on his nose again!
Johns mobile is hot this morning as people respond to yesterdays blog. One has said that they think I have a “Chatty style” (really??) and a “wicked sense of humour” (as if!!) – his friends ask if John manages to vet the blog before it gets posted – oh no, oh no – that wouldn’t be fun at all! Mostly he finds out what I have written from the text messages he receives from his friends and family as they respond to what they have read!
We had a lovely slow Sunday morning start today and Mike cooked us a lovely English breakfast served between two slices of bread – gorgeous!
This gave us a good start – a quick shower and we were ready to rock and roll. Peterhaven is a busy place with lots of commercial traffic
This ship even has its sunbathing platform!!!
and we had to radio the port control to have permission to slip the lines and bring the boat out. We were all ready but told to wait – we continued to listen to their VHF channel and listened to the conversations taking place between the ships skippers and the port authorities in their strong Scottish accents – I understood about 20% of what they said!
Eventually, they radioed “Round Britain Experience” (incidentally, they asked Tank to repeat the name of our boat – I think they find it difficult to understand Devonish accents!!) and gave us permission to leave.
I had explained how I thought I should bring the boat off the pontoon and out of the marina, Tank agreed, and I put the plan into practice and safely brought us out of the marina and the harbour area. It felt really good! The sun was shining, there was just a little wind to sail with.
A serious sailor!
Goodbye Peterhead!
We all enjoyed a good sail today, kept ourselves busy when not on the helm continuing our chart work and spending time working on our exercises for our yacht master exam (oh no – not the E word!)
Me enjoying sailing!
Apparently this is a brochure shot!
And Im navigating! Which way?
Watch out John - there is a ship on your stern!
It seems our boat is becoming a bit of a magnet for birds. We have a new guest on the boat – Mike was on the helm, I was chatting to him as this pigeon flew over head and landed on the sail cover (Tank’s bed), then she flew off and landed onto the cockpit seat.
Meet our new crew member - Polly!
She is still with us. I brought some water to her and she drank from it as I held the bowl
Come on lassie - have a wee dram!
"Och, I na mind if ay do"!!
Her way of thanking us is to empty her bowels over the boat as she shelters from the wind. We have called her “Polly” and she is our new crew member(I think we have been listening to too much “Pirates of the Caribbean” music!) RoBE is a little jealous of her, but he insisted on checking her out – he gave her a lecture on wearing her life jacket!
RoBE to Polly "Now listen here you bird brain - life jackets are useless unless worn"!
"Och leave me alone you big softie - Im busy"!
A real day for wildlife. Today I spotted minke and managed to grab a quick shot. I was on the helm at the time so took time to hand it over and grab at my camera, but I just about managed to grab some image just to prove it!
Do you agree that this is a Minke?
John brought the boat beautifully into Stonehaven and I stepped straight onto the quayside to secure the lines. There were a group of young lads (about 12-13ish) all jumping into the sea and having a really good time. I asked them to stop doing it for a few minutes as we went past with the boat to secure on – and they started to chat to us. They believed me when I said I was going for a dip later – nothing more I like than taking a nice dip in the North Scotland sea late in the evening – ahem ahem!!
They are local lads, I asked if they like living here, they said no, it was boring, there was nothing to do! They had already told us about the sea scouts, shown us it was lovely jumping in the sea – what a boring life they have in Stonehaven!! They should have a quick chat with the kids in Birmingham!
Having secured ourselves onto the pontoon we were ready for some nice food – a good time for Spaghetti Carbonara – aka “Stonetti Havanara”
Dinner finished its time to reward ourselves with a pint of Timmy Taylor ale – a lovely Yorkshire beer!
Polly however, didn't want us to head to the pub and stood at the top of the companionway!
Anyway, we are now back on the boat, and I’m safely back in my cabin. Its 11.30pm and Polly is still with us – she wishes you all goodnight! Coooo coooo!
I think I will just poo up here before I go - goodnight!
