Heaven and hell

Whitehills outer harbour - small

It's amazing how you can be thrown from the height of sailing bliss to sailing angst in just a few minutes flat. There we were scything through the waves, clocking 7 knots of speed in a 20 knot wind, both sails up in a close reach. The skies were full of cotton wool clouds, sea a luscious dark blue, as SIRENA IV sped east towards Rattray Head, the northeast corner of Scotland. We had set off from the charming little harbour of Whitehills where the minimum depth on our echo sounder was just 0.2 metres, that's a scary 7 and a half inches between the keel and the rocky bottom.  

This morning's sailing joy was what it's all about - why we go through the time and expense and hassle of buying and maintaining a boat, and it brought great big smiles to our faces as we each took our turn at the helm.

Then in the space of a few minutes, the white sea fog descended and hemmed us in, and mountainous seas built up around us. The boat was plunging and bucking, and we were in potential danger of collision with any of the big fishing boats that ply this tricky coast. For an hour and a half we sounded the foghorn (a doleful sound) every few minutes, kept our safety lines clipped on and scanned the fog constantly for any sign of a vessel. All this while SIRENA rode the huge waves like a trawler.  

When we could see on the chart-plotter that we were past Rattray Head, we breathed a sigh of relief. The boat had been almost five miles offshore and yet the effects of the headland and its fast tides were unforgettable. At last the fog lifted like a curtain on the land side, and the sea sparkled blue again. But the monster waves kept going all the way to Peterhead, the large fishing port whose marina we finally entered at around 6 pm. The boat and we were crusted with salt spray. In fact, if you lick your hand, it tastes like a chip.