The day started with clear blue skies. I motored past the sand dunes and it seemed I could have been in the Mediterranean. There was very little wind to start with and it was coming from the west so would be behind me. I was looking forward to crossing Spey Bay because there is a resident school of Bottlenose dolphins there, but it seems they were off somewhere else.I didn't see a single fin.
If there were few planes flying out of RAF Kinloss, there was no shortage around Lossiemouth. The RAF airfield is just behind the dunes and some pilots seemed to be practicing taking off and landing. It was like having my very own display. As the winds were so light I experimented with poling out the genoa and then raising the no.2 jib as well. I then thought it would be a good opportunity to put up the spinnaker. As soon as it was up the wind started to turn so down it came again. The wind swung through 180 degrees and strengthened a bit. The forecast had said nothing about it coming form the east.It meant I now had to motor sail, so I wouldn't get so far today.
It meant that I needed to revise my destination.I chose Findochty, which the pilot book described as an "attractive village of brightly painted cottages..and..once a smugglers' paradise". The pilot book is seldom so glowing, so I thought it was worth trying.It was an attractive harbour and I moored alongside the harbour wall. The houses were all of a very similar design to the ones I had seen in the older part of Findhorn. It seems as if these places were built for the fisherman and I wondered how this had been organised back then.
I met another couple of travellers again in a Colvic 26 and also retired geography teachers. As we compared places we had stayed over a glass of wine we were entertained by the local teenagers tombstoning off the harbour wall. They had stayed in Lossiemouth marina the night before and seemed to have met the lone sailor in the 17ft Pirate I met in the Caledonian. Looks like he's caught up and overtaken me.
There was hardly any Internet signal in the harbour and the local pub landlord looked like I was asking for some strange English ale when I asked him if he had wifi. His pub seemed to have been formed by joining 2 semis together. It's right next to a camp site at the back of the beach, so is quite popular.
What little signal I had was showing me that when I tried to send an email it put it into the draft box instead of sending it out, so I apologise through this blog to all those who aren't getting any replies from me.
As well as looking at boat names I like looking at house names too. This one was actually a B+B, but it seems like they've started downsizing!
The progress of my journey now looks like this.
No comments:
Post a Comment