Summer Cruise 2014 [part 2] – Fife Riviera

The weather improved as we reached Aberdour and as ever, we received an enthusiastic welcome from the friendly and helpful harbour master …he’s a real gem.

As it happened, the annual Aberdour Festival was due to start the following day, and would run for over a week. We reviewed the festival programme and were told that a handy map existed that showed the various venues. It’s fair to say that I performed a classic double take, accompanied by a rather colourful expletive when we eventually got our hands on the elusive map (see left), as unknown to us, our Macwester Malin ketch was centre-stage on the map’s front cover, with the strap line “The jewel of the Fife Riviera” underneath.

Looking closely at the details, we reckoned that the photograph had been taken during our first season in 2011. Possibly on our very first visit to Aberdour (more here), as the location of the berth looks about right.

We spent a week in Aberdour, catching up with friends and going for walks. It was the most relaxing part of our time away. Aberdour is a well-protected harbour and we didn’t have the same problems getting a good night’s sleep as we did in Elie. The shot below shows the view looking west from the harbour across to the Black Sands.

Towards the end of our stay we spent a bit of time considering a visit to Inchcolm, which is something that we have wanted to do for a while, but hadn’t quite managed to get the weather and timings to work for us. The harbour master helped us with insider advice, and we left Aberdour with enough time in hand to make an attempt at landing.

We managed to avoid the many rocks that litter Inchcolm’s periphery and after a bit of hesitation we parked our Macwester Malin on the wooden jetty on the north-east side of the island.

As we weren’t sure how fast the tide would come in, we took the bow as far up the beach as possible to avoid the prospect of the jetty being submerged when it was time to leave.

We were only on the island for around an hour. In that time we explored much of the west side by foot, but didn’t make it all the way to the far side and an unbroken view of the bridges, as there were too many agitated gulls becoming even more agitated if we tried to pass near their full-sized offspring. We thought it best to retreat and leave them alone.

After an enjoyable lunch on-board in the open air (tent-down) centre cockpit of our Macwester Malin, we reluctantly left Inchcolm behind us and set a course for home. Looking back towards Inchcolm, we became aware of a sinister-looking craft that was gaining on us with alacrity. Best we could tell, it was some sort of Darth Vader-style ‘death’ ship (see insert below).

By the time we reached the bridges, we could see that the mystery vessel was in fact the Olympic Challenger, and she looked as though she had cargo intended for the new Queensferry Crossing. She gave us a deafening honk from her air horns as she passed.

The crew and I agreed that our next boat would need to have a helipad, as that has the potential to bring an added dimension to our cruising season.