First proper cruise

[Fingal]

... And very satisfactory it was. We left Port Ed on Friday morning a little later than planned due to a crucial element of the ship's manifest having been forgotten, but once that was resolved it was heigh ho for the outer Firth of Forth. The nice man at Pittenweem allowed us to stay overnight on Friday, and Saturday saw a bright cold breezy day and a cracking sail past the Isle of May, round the Bass Rock and back West to Inchkeith. The shelter on the W side is excellent but quite a bit of tide runs through the anchorage but we had a pretty comfortable night and an easy sail back to Queensferry this morning. More or less everything on the boat worked apart from the Navtex which appears to be stuffed.
The most interesting wildlife was the Gannets heading for the Bass with bills full of seaweed for nest building, also the first cetacean of the year, a Porpoise just West of the Rail Bridge. All in all a great weekend.

[marisca]

Congratulations! It's a bummer having to wait until after 10.00 to buy booze, isn't it?

Tell us, what anchor did you use for Inchkeith?

[Fingal]

Congratulations! It's a bummer having to wait until after 10.00 to buy booze, isn't it?

Tell us, what anchor did you use for Inchkeith?

Wouldn't that be a breach of forum protocol? I mean it's not something gentlemen really discuss, is it?
(A sufficient answer would be to say a large and heavy one attached to a very long chain.) Even the relatively fit 40 year old on the foredeck was very glad to have the assistance of electrical apparatus for anchor retrieval. Excellent holding even after a midnight windshift that would surely have snapped the shank of one of those dodgy Chinese jobs.

[claymore]

Dont give up on the Navtex - it may be the service not the set

[marisca]

I'll agree about the Navtex. Mine disnae like the Forth but does like Malin Head's broadcasts on the other side. If you expand its repertoire to include all stations you may find Hamburg and other far stations are being received while the englander ones have vanished into the ether.

[DaveS]

I'd agree with that. At Craobh I rarely get Portpatrick, but Malin Head comes through very well. Hardly surprising, really, since LF ground wave propagation is much better over the conductive sea than over resistive land.

[claymore]

Will you stop that filthy talk - propagation indeed!

[sahona]

Check the internal battery on the Navtex before it dribbles over everything and self-destructs.