One problem with the berth in Aberdeen was it being TOO sheltered. We were receiving the forecast each morning but had little idea of what the sea outside the harbour was looking like at anyone time. On Wednesday night I decided to go for a walk to “find the sea” and after 40 minutes I was on the seafront making the waves out in the darkness.

After repeating the exercise on Thursday morning it was clear that although it was rough a short trip down the coast would not be out of the question.

After waiting for forty-five minutes for a gap in the North Sea traffic we were given the go ahead and were soon motoring out through the harbour gaps (very) closely followed by a supply ship.

The swell was larger than I had hoped and the tide was running fast down the coast. After motoring clear offshore I hosted the jib and quickly started motor sailing down the coast. The plan was to make for the small town of Stonehaven twelve miles south with the idea that every few miles would help. There was not much wind and it was more motoring than sailing. After eight miles the wind turned onto the nose and the easiest thing to do was to motor the last few miles in. My greatest concern was the swell breaking around the harbour entrance making Stonehaven a “no go”.

After ten minutes of last minute planning we made our approach. I think the key to approaching any harbour like this is to plan (and expect) the worst. This attitude worked great here with the channel into the harbour being perfectly usable. However, you could not know this from further out (or the chart) without local knowledge and had to be ready to abort entry at short notice. I had tried on a number of occasions over a few days to get hold of the harbourmaster but with no joy, so we surprised the locals with our arrival. We were soon given a mooring in the middle harbour with an offer of a berth in the inner harbour if the weather came in again.