We’re now in Port Edgar on the Forth, having sailed 416nm from Bergen to arrive here the night before last (Fri 31 Aug).

 

We sailed from Bergen in the morning of Tue 28 Aug, all three of us still on board as we were dropping off Barney at Hjellestad, a small waterfront village close to the airport.  It made his trip to the airport shorter and helped us as it got us about 3 hours ‘down track’ towards open sea.  By 1220 we’d said farewell to Barney from another very pretty village and Chris and I were on our way, taking just another few hours to reach Marstein lighthouse, our departure point for the North Sea crossing.  As we hardened up the sails our course was just a few degrees off the required bearing for the Forth and the conditions were much kinder than at the time of our arrival when we’d been battling through an onshore F8.  By late afternoon we’d lost the Norwegian coast astern and by early evening the wind had increased to the extent that we swapped the genoa for the staysail and put a couple of reefs in the main.  We also took down our Norwegian courtesy flag and adjusted deck time back to BST: altering the clocks being a significant moment in any east-west passage and really bringing home the fact that we were heading back.

 

Our passage across the North Sea was about as perfect a crossing as could be hoped for considering we were sailing against the prevailing SW wind.  For the first night and most of the next day we sailed under staysail and double reefed main, just falling short of our required course, but the wind was due to shift to the WNW and when it did we were able to hoist more sail and regain our required course relatively quickly.  In the late afternoon, through the night and for most of the subsequent day we were in amongst oil and gas platforms, their attendant support vessels and a variety of survey ships so needed to keep our wits about us.  No sooner were were clear of them than we were in amongst fishing vessels.  As darkness fell on 30 Aug against the backdrop of a wonderful sunset we spent a few hours motor sailing across a glassy smooth sea which lasted until a similarly spectacular sunrise the following morning.  Just before sunrise on 31st we could see the faint glows on the horizon of Peterhead and Aberdeen.  Shortly after sunrise the wind picked up gradually from the south and before long we were on a 7.5kt sleigh ride into the Firth of Forth, having sighted land on our starboard beam at 0830, and ahead of us shortly after.  Our landfall in the Forth was the Isle of May which sits centrally like a guardian watching all ships entering and leaving: we were there by 1700, only to find that the wind dropped.  To our south were the prominent Bass Rock, home to one of the world’s largest gannet colonies – gannets had been much in evidence for the past couple of days - and the curious triangular peak of North Berwick Law.  After a couple of hours motoring the breeze set in again from the west and we had a wonderful beat in flat water, clear skies and bright evening sunshine towards Inchkeith Island, just north of Edinburgh, and could pick out the castle and a number of other city centre landmarks.  There are no facilities for yachts in Edinburgh – in stark contrast to most other capital cities which seem to have city centre moorings to attract visitors – so our nearest marina was Port Edgar which nestles right underneath the Forth Bridges.  We eventually moored at just before 2300 and managed to obtain Customs clearance by phone within an hour of arrival.  This was a relief as I hadn’t needed to use the Customs system for yachts for over 30 years when it used to be a requirement even for Channel crossings.

 

Yesterday was spent re-fuelling, watering up, re-provisioning, cleaning Rosinis, and exploring South Queensferry which is a pretty little village with a very strong WW1 naval history dating back to the re-positioning of the Grand Fleet from Scapa Flow to the Forth.  Port Edgar was home to 60 or so destroyers: they must have been small ones!

 

Chris leaves for the airport this morning (2 Sep) and I shall head south, back to solo sailing.  The attached photos show one of the many North Sea platforms we passed; the Isle of May; sunset at the end of a thrilling beat into the Forth, and a couple of shots of the floodlit Forth Rail Bridge as we approached Port Edgar in darkness.