June | 2026 | heydays346

Even after one day, the early morning routine is established….get dressed by numbers, say a bleary good morning as brightly as we can to each other and get the kettle on. The forecast is for showers, a bit of a chill and Easterly F4….more getting togged up and more layers. Just as we are getting ready to slip the mooring, Billy and his son arrive back in harbour and they are really chipper having had a good haul of langoustines. We thank him for the crab, but as we leave the harbour he throws us a big bag with at least 60 or 70 langoustine tails. What a brilliant way to start the day and so we slide out into the new day with not just hot coffee, but a really wonderful warm feeling and broad smiles on our faces.

The easterly F4 does not materialise…in fact there is not enough wind to properly fill the sails. However, the previous night’s easterly has left a rather short swell over the beam and Heydays rolls slightly uncomfortably. We tighten the sails, not to drive us along, but just to dampen the rolling.

The coast is definitely becoming craggier and there are all sorts of cliffs and stacks rising out of a sea with breakers at their foot.

Off shore there is a huge windfarm and we seem to be sailing past it for hours…alternately it is in bright sunshine and at other times we see the rain squalls washing past…some of which get us as well.

Amid all the slop and tossing of a beam swell, some dolphins decide to keep us company for a while. Not as spectacular as Coleraine last September, but they always lift the spirits…

As we approach Wick, there are signs of civilisation appearing on the cliffs, but no sign of the promised fresh easterlies…

We call the Wick Harbourmaster and he is waiting on the pontoon to guide us in and to take lines…another great welcome and service which we have rarely (if ever) met ‘down south.

We lunch on crab linguine, langoustines and a bottle of white…cheers again Billy from Helmsdale…and promptly fall asleep….

We do a short shopping list and head off to the Coop for essentials…2 whites, 2 reds, one gin, one tonic and some spaghetti….its a tough life.

Wandering round town, we get a sense of real decay since even the last time we were here in 2017. There are just so many shops which are boarded up and even the Weatherspoons has gone. It was clearly once a very grand town with huge wealth built on the herring. One information board describes the heyday of the herring industry with a single day catch of over 100million herring and an army of over 3000 fearsome herring gutter women. With over 1000 boats out of Wick in the 1930s we see just a couple of dozen now. The information board seemed to blame the quotas introduced in the 60s, but the reality is that the herring were simply over-fished, and they killed the very thing which made them rich.

However, as we wander back towards the harbour we see some signs for the future…huge wind turbine blades on the dockside ready for transportation to a new wind farm just down the coast. The blades are huge…78.5 meters long according to a young dock steward, and 20 tons, and are carried vertically on specially designed transporter. Great, we think. Maybe there is hope and life for the future, only to be told that these blades have come from Germany, while others come from Mexico and the US. We are left angry and frustrated. Why are we not building them here? Why are we not giving some hope, jobs and prosperity to a town which clearly needs it?

OK OK, this is a sailing blog, but one of the best bits about sailing like this is that we get to visit places which are convenient harbours, but which are off the tourist trail. We get to see bits of our country which we would not otherwise have visited and to confront some difficult truths about post industrial, finance and service sector focused UK.

We are back on Heydays having spent some time back home, renewing our acquaintances with grandchildren, gardens/allotments and general domestic stuff.

Chris is not with us for this leg so it’s just John, James and Yee Tak driving up to Inverness early on Tuesday morning. We take turns driving, 2 hours on and 2 hours off…a bit like being on watch for long sea passages. Breakfast in probably the best
motorway services in the country, at Gloucester Farm Shop, and apart from a few pottystops and hand-overs, we get to Heydays by early evening and it’s great to be back on board…and she smells good too!

We have a couple of day’s worth of jobs planned…including new valves for the toilet…who says sailing is all glamour.

Friday morning and a 5.30am alarm gets us up if not raring. We were woken at times in the night as the rigging was whistling and vibrating in the wind, and the rain lashed down with a fierce drumming on the roof…not conditions conducive to a good sleep. The
forecast is for westerly winds F4 to 6, but with showers for most of the day. The main
reason for relinquishing our pillows so early, is so that we can get the strong ebb current out under the bridge and through the Channory Narrows. We get fully togged up as not only are we expecting rain, but the wind is chilly too.

We called Helmsdale Harbourmaster yesterday to check that there would be space for us, only to be told that due to a winter of South Easterly storms, the harbour and the entrance is silted up and that it is effectively closed to leisure boats. We explain that as a bilge keeler with limited draft, we are used to the south coast mud and are happy to take the ground. After a conversation with his boss, the very helpful Billy said that he
was happy to take us and that if we call when we are close, he will guide us in.

It is brilliant to get the boat ready for the open sea…checking sails, ropes and finalising
the navigation for the day.

Finally…we slip our mooring and slide out into the bright Inverness morning…

With the fresh breeze fine over the port quarter, we opt just for a genoa. Over the years we have found that the old girl sails really well like this, and is easy to tack down wind. The added note here is that we don’t need to push on too rapidly as we can’t enter
Helmsdale until 2.30 at the earliest.

As Inverness falls astern into a brightening sky, we are grateful for our early morning coffee. This is June, but with lots of layers stuffing us up, it feels more like February.

We zig zag through the narrows and then we see them…our first dolphins of this leg. Sadly for us they are more interested in their own breakfast than playing or allowing their photo to be taken, but it is still lovely to see them…

We settle in to the usual pattern of a longish passage, the autohelm doing its job and us watching for the usual pot buoys. Of other ships we see nothing, just a small coaster pushing out eastwards.

The rain comes and goes and we are thankful for our wet weather gear, but when the sun deigns to make an appearance we are quite pathetically grateful…but it really lifts the spirits.

Lunch of hot soup and bread is a real treat…

…and soon we are contacting Billy the harbourmaster to guide us in across the new sandbanks. We line up the marks and then with a sharp turn into the harbour as instructed we are in and Billy is there to take our lines. 9 years ago we were the first yacht of the season to visit Helmsdale, this year we are also the first of the season to attempt the entrance. Just as we make fast our lines, the sky opens (again) and we retreat inside to dry off.

Billy has only been doing the job for a couple of months, as he used to be a regular fisherman. Now, with a couple of hip ops behind him, his son has the boat and Billy helps out from time to time, although he still has a small boat of his own which he uses occasionally. Mostly they catch crab, lobster and langoustines which they sell to local restaurants and hotels.

We opt for an afternoon nap and when we wake up, we find that Billy has left us a tub of crab meat. He is due to go out this evening with his son and so we say goodbye and just realise again how friendly and helpful the harbourmasters are up here.

Helmsdale has clearly seen better days, and the storms and silting of the harbour will do nothing to help. With a few forty winks under our eyelids, we head off for a wander round…

to the ‘famous’ La Mirage fish and chip restaurant. It is renowned for its huge portions, its glitzy pink décor and its famous attraction for Barbara Cartland who was apparently a frequent visitor. Under new owners the portions are less enormous, but we still can’t finish everything. We head back to Heydays considerably heavier than when we left and prepare ourselves for another early tide to catch.