Peterhead to Whitehills to Wick and back to Wick

I've just had a look at the Just Giving site and our total to date is just short of £3,500. Many thanks to you all for your donations. It makes it all worthwhile. If you haven't made a donation yet please do. Even if it's only a fiver or tenner. It all helps. A big thanks to Tony Randle (I can never remember how to spell your surname Tony) one of my drinking mates from The Countryman in North Petherwin, for his hard work in prising money out of the residents of the village and the drunkards at the pub. I'm sorry that the guests at Nigel and Yvettes party were pressganged by Tony but it's all for a good cause. Tony's pot is standing at £250 at present - let's make it 350?I hope some of you heard the phonecall I had with David White on BBC Radio Cornwall this morning (24th). It was good to have contact with something I consider is the sound of home as I always enjoy listening to DW's show in the mornings. He's asked me to keep in touch over the next few weeks so listen out.Anyway - back to the blog.......The morning in Peterhead dawned a bit dryer and brighter than the deluge of the previous evening and spirits were lifted a bit. We managed to get some stuff dry by hanging it all over the boat (pikeys again - we could probably get a few old fridges on the foredeck) and got a few provisions from the petrol station a fair walk down the road. After filling the diesel tank we left the harbour in rain again, having remembered this time to call the port control for permission, and headed North past Fraserborough and into the Moray Firth. The swell of the day before was still there but the wind had gone Easterly so we had an easy sail under full jib only with a fairly pronounced roll from the swell. The rain stopped and the sun came out and the general mood improved. As we ran along the North facing coast of the Moray Firth we saw cliffs in the distance shrouded by mist and very damp looking clouds which didn't seem to be moving at all. As we got closer the wind died completely and within 2 minutes had turned through 180 degrees and was now right on the nose - again! So full sail up and we started tacking towards our destination at Whitehills (look it up on a map. I had to.) This tacking stuff was all a bit dull and with 20 miles to go we really just wanted to get there so I decided to get the engine on and motor-sail as this gave us the speed we needed but 10 degrees closer to the wind. David Findlay, the harbourmaster met us at the pontoon in the the lovely little marina at Whitehills. A really pleasant guy and most helpful. There was great celebration amongst the crew of Gamaldansk when he told us there was a laundry room with an industrial tumble drier and two washing machines. Oh for the feel of clean, dry pants! There was also an internet connection from which I did the last blog and caught up on some e mails whilst the guys went and inspected the local hostelry, The Seafield Inn. Pete said it was the best pub so far. By the way Mike - only 36 pubs to date, but there's time yet bonny pet.An early start at 0600 so we turned in at a reasonable hour.Another grey dawn but, hey, not raining. Pete's mood was very low and we had a bit of a head-to-head over planning and provisions and a few issues were discussed on the foredeck! I wondered when we started if this would happen as a boat is a very small place for two people to be together for a prolonged period, but we sorted stuff out and all was well later. Definitely a bit of cabin fever kicking in. Since then we have kissed and made up. (Not on the lips though!)So, a 50 mile stint across the Moray Firth to Wick. Of course the little bit of wind we had was blowing from Wick to Whitehills. Great! With the experience of the previous day I elected to motor-sail again which meant that we could just about hold a course that wasn't either straight towards Inverness or, on the other tack, somewhere in Norway. The wind eased later, backing more northwest but dying to almost nothing. So 12 hours later we motored into Wick, sails down, on a glassy sea. During this time I had spent a while doing tidal calculations and timings for getting through the Pentland Firth the following day. This has a reputation as the most dangerous water around the British coast and has to be treated with a lot of respect and a great deal of planning as the tides there run up to 12kn and cause huge confused seas that can easily overwhelm a small boat. We were met in Wick by the acting harbourmaster in the absence the the resting one. He was exactly what you'd expect a harbourmaster to be - grey beard, glasses and cap. We wondered if, when the official man isn't present, whoever is acting on his behalf has to wear the "on duty" beard, hat and twinkly eyes, which are kept on a peg in the harbour office. We met some lovely friendly folk in the rather grotty looking Mountain Dew Bar (Pete says the best looking barmaid so far. Dotty. He's in love with her I think) A reasonable Chinese sit-down and early night as we had to be up for 0400 to be at Duncansby Head, the entrance to the Pentland Firth, 14 miles north of Wick, by exactly 0700.Well, the best laid plans of mice and men etc. We were away on time at 0430, in good spirits. I had spent a fairly sleepless night worrying about what the day might have in store and I seems I was right to worry. The wind was in the NW, only about 10kn in the harbour but as we came away from the land (once again in the pissing rain - excuse the language but it's the best way I can describe it) it got up to 20kn gusting 25 and only 30 degrees off our course. As we approached Duncansby head it came even more on the nose and I called for the sails down and attempted to make way into the wind and sea under power only. The poor engine struggled to move us forwards at 2.5kn as the headland did a disappearing trick into the rain and mist in the distance. They say in sailing that if you're thinking about doing something then you should have already done it, and in this instance I was thinking about turning back and admitting defeat. I struggled with these thoughts for about 10 minutes, disappointment, failure, letting people down, being amongst them. But I had to make the call for safety reasons and, 6 miles short of the northernmost tip of mainland Britain, we turned about and headed back to Wick.The weather looks good for a second attempt tomorrow, but I'm concerned about what it will do in the following days when we have a 100 mile run from Scrabster to Stornoway along the desolate and harbour-free north coast of Scotland. I'm seriously considering back-tracking and going down the Caledonian Canal across to the west coast.Watch this space!