Peterhead to Inverness

Whilst Peterhead marina was great I must confess to finding the town itself really depressing. Despite a flourishing oil and fishing industry and a busy affluent looking harbour the town of Peterhead was run down and unwelcoming. It's probably the least pleasant place we have visited on our travels. Ironically, having found this pretty miserable spot, the weather continued to be unhelpful so we found ourselves a little bit trapped in a place that very unusually we didn't really want to be.

It's quite an interesting situation and an important lesson. The only reason we felt stuck is because we set ourselves a target to get somewhere. No target and you're not stuck. What I should have done is to change our destination to suit the weather but I didn't, I fixated on heading south.

Anyway, in the end a small weather window came up .. I say window because it was still forecast sixes and sevens but at least not gales.  My plan was to beat down the coast for two days which would get us within spitting distance of a harbour and then claw our way in. The gamble was if we didn't get there then gales would hit us and we would be stuck hove too close to a haven but unable to get in. We set off.

We motor sailed out into some hefty seas. Wind over tide, bouncy bouncy and pretty miserable, we were mentally prepared for a long hard slog. Anyway,  after a couple of hours the penny finally dropped and I realised that this was silly. Rob was driving ... I popped my head out into the cockpit .. 'Shall we turn round and head for Inverness ? Yes he said. We turned round.

 It was a good call because those southerlies stayed strong for the whole week. We would have been severely beaten up.

What we ended up with was a gorgeous sail of a day and a half arriving at Inverness early evening the next day.

Jack was slightly confused when he came on watch after three hours sleep to find we were in exactly the same spot. But apart from this entertaining aside the passage west was plain sailing!

The journey South had suddenly come to an end for the year but it was the right decision even if it had taken me too long to make it.