A Challenging Day

 We got off the anchor just before 6 am and headed round Tarbat Ness.

It was a fine, windless morning. The morning Inshore Waters suggested wind would come in from the south-east overnight, so we decided to make Rosmarkie a lunch stop, and carry on to Inverness in the afternoon. Cape Wrath to Rattray Head, including the Isles of Orkney, is a sea area so vast and complex to be almost useless. I don't trust it at all for the inner Moray Firth. I'm using Windy a lot these days as its visualisations are excellent. Windy agreed the wind would come in later but said north-east.

We agreed we would be away from Rosmarkie before the wind came in.

We had a lovely motor around Tarbat Ness, George doing all the work, and down the Dornoch peninsula to Cromarty Firth. We saw an oil platform being towed into Nigg from a distance and we could see it in there as we passed.

A cormorant circled Robinetta about 10 times near Cromarty.

An early start meant we were both ready for an early lunch, so we had cheese rolls and crisps before noon.

We dropped anchor at about 1 pm and rowed ashore. It was flat calm and hazy. We met and chatted with several people as we headed into the village.

My target for the day was the Groam Museum, another place famous for it's Pictish symbol stones and cross slabs. When we got there it was unexpectedly closed due to staffing issues.

So we went for a walk up the Fairy Glenn to a nice waterfall.

On the way back, we had a drink in the Plough and then wandered back down to the beach, noticing that there was now wind in the tallest trees.

When we saw the sea there were white horses! That was really unexpected. Once we could see Robinetta we started to get worried, she was bucking around.

We knew it would be a difficult launch into the surf and a stiff row. It would also be quite hard getting aboard. But we tried. On the beach, a couple we had met earlier, Roddy and Suzanne, helped us launch.

We got off OK and I was making good progress until we were half way there. We both knew that Alison would be making a much better job of it if her elbow wasn't still healing from the break it suffered in Shetland.

Then I started getting tired and I think the wind got even stronger. I could not see how we were doing, but Alison said we were going backwards and getting pushed south towards Chanonry Point. Eventually we gave up and went back to shore. On the beach, Roddy and Suzanne were standing by to help. Alison got soaked by a big wave as we landed.

Robinetta was bouncing all over the place and we were worried she would drag her anchor. Alison called 999 to talk to the Coastguard. She made sure they knew there were no people in danger. Roddy and I got Worm further up the beach.

They took the details and said they would call back. They asked for our position using "what three words". We said "can't we give you a lat/long?". We gave them a lat/long. Roddy and Suzanne took us up to their caravan to get warm and dry and gave us tea.

The Coastguard phoned back. The North Kessock ILB would pick us up from the west side of Chanonry Point, where it was calm, and take us to Robinetta.

Suzanne came with us to show us the way across the golf course to the shingle beach. I watched the ILB on Marinetraffic. I got pulled aboard the ILB OK, but it was hard to get Alison on with her injury. The ILB had to lift it's engines and be walked into the shallows.

Getting to Robinetta was a bumpy ride. The wind was extreme. They put one crew member on board Robinetta. Then we heard an alarm. The crew couldn't find anything wrong on the ILB. I went on board and worked out it was our engine! The key had got knocked when the RNLI crew member got on. I started the engine to warm up and we secured the lines that had got shaken lose. Getting Alison on board was only slightly more complicated.

Then I went forward to haul the anchor. It came up OK but I was happy to accept help from the crew member who was still aboard.

Once we were off, we motored to Chanonry Point, and once in the lee of the sand, the crew member transferred back to the ILB and we parted ways. At least the lifeboat crew got to watch the dolphins at the Point.

We got the staysail up and motor-sailed at 6 knots towards the Kessock bridge. Wind and tide were pushing us hard and I had to make sure we weren't pushed onto the sandbanks.

It was still quite extreme, getting into the river, and then into our berth, but it all worked.

We won't trust the wind not to come in early again!

Now we just have to get Worm back.

No-one who's had dealings with lifeboat crews, or watched Saving Lives at sea, will be surprised to hear what a lovely, capable crew came to our aid. It was great to see a mixed crew with some highly experienced and some really new members, all wonderful. They didn't need to come and help, we didn't need saving. I know that if someone else had needed us more, they would have abandoned us somewhere safe and went to save lives. But they did turn a minor crisis into something we could deal with.

We learned a lesson today. In future, we will have a risk assessment before rowing ashore. If we'd done that, we might have gone round the Point to Fortrose to anchor.