Fog

Fog and me are not the best of friends.  The weather forecast said "fog patches", well I must have followed this fog patch all day.  The swell waves were about 15 metres apart and I could only see four of them.  As often happens the sun is out and shinning quite brilliantly from above from time to time.  This means that the fog not very deep, but that doesn't really help does it.  From the Isle of May I headed out to sea to get away from the pot markers.  Having said that some of them are in 50 metres of water!

The chartplotter was on with the AIS overlay so I could see the large vessels.  Fishing boats often have it too and quite a few yachts, especially the foreign ones it seems.  Peering into the gloom all day it very tiring so I was thinking of putting into Stonehaven.  Nearing Stonehaven the weather cleared and the sun cheered us up so I decided to carry on.  Huh, as soon as we got past Aberdeen, in it closed again, along with the night.  I did give us a chance to get through the busy shipping around this port with some half decent vis.  

My head was getting a little sore with the piecing fog signal siren every two minutes.  The speaker that pumps the sound out also has a "listen back" feature.  Being high up the mast it is away from any engine and wave sounds and one can hear the answering signals back.  Fog sound signals are grouped according to the length of vessel.  The high notes for small vessels and low notes for big vessels so when you hear a really booming bass note watch out!  A short vid of how it is.  It seems to jump a bit but you get the gist.

 

 I was aiming for Peterhead with its all weather and all tide entrance through the rather large breakwaters into the bay and thence into the marina in the corner.  Just off the south skerries I called up the harbour radio and requested permission to close the breakwaters.  It was busy and permission was denied.  I was asked to call back in half and hour, by which time things might have slowed down a bit.  I could hardly see the front of the boat and it is very easy to get disorientated in conditions such as these as I know only too well........  I turned 180 and headed back half a mile then turned back onto my original heading and cut the engine speed down so we were doing about 1 knot against the tide.  I could just about keep stationary with the tide and Samantha did the steering.

After the half hour I was called up and told to close the breakwaters to the south of the main channel and wait  1/2 a mile from the entrance.  The tide was moving now and it took a while to cover the 1 1/2 miles, particularly as I had to negotiate the rocks and any pot markers that might be in my path.  I was totally blind to tell the truth, I could have run over a hundred pot markers and not known about it.  The electronic chart was the only way I could have done it short of being talked in by harbour master on his radar.  This he was doing for several fishing boats, in and out.

When it was my turn I was called expedite the entrance.  The chart plotter said I was less than 100 metres from the breakwaters and the lights on the end only showed up above my head as I was going through the gap.  Larger vessels were taking pilots even though they were exempt.  Once inside the vis cleared, it was still not good but by comparison the "blind could see again".  Peterhead bay is rather large and now enclosed by those humungous breakwater so there was still a way to go to the marina in the south west corner.  So  I set a course on the plotter to take me to the marina entrance and, at low speed, turned up at the buoy, just where it should have been.  I tied up to the nearest pontoon and had a rest having said my thanks to the controller for his patience.  Eighteen hours and 875 miles, what a day but it makes you feel alive.