Day 44-Friday 1st July- Peterhead to Stonehaven

As I sit here in Stonehaven, I've just had one of those "its Wednesday it must be Amsterdam moments, but worse. It was more like "What day is it and where was I last night?"Recently,  I think I've been travelling too much and need to take greater stock of where I am.

Listening to the radio this morning before I set off from Stonehaven they spoke of a fishing boat having been towed in there during the night by a couple of lifeboats attended by a helicopter.There had been a fire in the engine room. I slept through it all and was totally oblivious. Nobody was reported as being hurt so that was good.

Walking along the pontoon I was taken by the amount of sea weed growing on some of the boats. Sally Belle is obviously one of those that never goes anywhere, but just sits there.

It was more of a broad reach along the coast today in flattish water with the force 3/4 coming off the land. Kelvin was keeping up a bit better.It was perfect sailing conditions , with a clear blue sky.On radio scotland there was a debate about whether there should be a ban on smoking in cars when there are children inside.The commentator was clearly an anti smoker and didn't give the other side much opportunity to complete their case, The case seemed to be that clearly it was wrong for people to smoke with kids in the car but we didn't need a law to prohibit it.Seemed a fair case to make speaking as a non smoker.

There seems to be so many sea birds around on the surface of the sea. The food must be good for them here. Also saw my first puffin.There were some interesting cliffs along this stretch, with plenty of caves and bird colonies. Most of the time I was too far off to take any close up photos. It's also virtually impossible to hold a camera steady on a moving boat if you zoom in too much.

Early on we passed an impressively large ruin called Slains Castle.

Off Aberdeen the wind started to slacken and I made my second attempt this trip to use the spinnaker. Just like last time the drop in wind was a precursor to a change in direction so it was now against us.This meant motoring for the last few miles.I will have to develop the confidence to deploy the shute much sooner, but It does complicate things trying to do this single handed.

On the entrance to Stonehaven there are some unusual cliffs, which look like they've been made with jelly molds.

Stonehaven is a lovely little sandy harbour.Sand really is a feature of this coast line.There are endless miles of of beautiful golden sand with nobody on it. I moored up alongside the harbour wall and had to bridge some steps as there was nowhere else to go.

I had a quick walk around before starting work on the blog and thought this raised lounge was a pretty good contemporary extension. It would have great views of the bay.

The town lies at the northern edge of the  area known as Angus and Perthshire.It includes Montrose, Dundee, Perth and Stirling.I'm now moving into the more populated part of the east coast of Scotland.It also includes the part of Fife that was the subject of that radio programme a couple of days ago.The weekend promises good weather and i shall have to use it to explore this area a bit rather than just pass through.

At sometime today Joe had texted me to say he'd just found out he'd got a 2.1 from Goldsmiths. Clever lad he's done good!