We're off!

 

At last we're away. We left Port Edgar on a rather windy evening heading north
 for Inverness and on to Oban on the first leg of the trip down to Portugal. 
The wind was blowing a good 25 knots under the bridges - bang on the nose and
 the forecast was F4-5 NE which didn't sound too good. We knew however that 
delaying leaving we were likely to suffer stronger winds so it was now or 
never. We motored for the first 4 hours and felt a little easier when Forth 
Coastguard told us there was only 10 knots of wind at Fife Ness. With a 
rather grey evening we saw our last view of the bridges for a while.



By midnight we were round Fife Ness and the wind swung to NNE keeping it 
bang on the nose although it did drop to 10 knots as predicted. At least 
now we were able to get the main up and motor sail a while. The boat was 
fully crewed by Andys - well to be more exact, half the crew were Andys. 
Tom and Andy had joined us for the trip round to Oban - not quite the 
hair-raising experience that Andy's photo shows.



We managed to sail for around 6 hours but progress was slow beating into 
the wind and waves so reluctantly decided to go back to motor sailing to 
try and get round Rattray head before midnight. We just managed it and 
sailed into Lossiemouth around six-ish on Sunday morning. Time then for 
a few beers and a couple of wee drams before crashing out. It was Tom's 
first long sail (36 hours) but a great experience.Not really a lot to 
report about the trip except it would have been interesting going into 
Lossie with the mainsail up if Tom hadnt reminded me to get it down. 
No speed records set today (or yesterday) - maybe we can get a chance 
for some exciting sailing soon.



Sunday evening we sampled the buffet in the local Chinese "Charlie Chan's " 
excellent food for a buffet. Everyone stuffed themselves ready for an early 
morning start to get out of Lossie before the tide dropped too much. We saw 
Sherkin and Elise in the harbour but no sign of Stuart who we had met on 
previous years North Sea races. 

Next leg, down to Inverness and into the canal.