As a young lad of only ten years old, Jim Whitelaw is taken sailing with a friend of the family. Jim is totally enthralled and from that day forward Jim decides that one day he will buy his own yacht. It is forty years later before Jim eventually keeps his promise to himself and this book reflects the story and steep learning curve during Jim's forty-year journey. Jim buys his first boat without too much knowledge and makes many mistakes and gets into quite a few scrapes. This book follows Jim's dream and nightmares.
As a young lad of only ten years old, Jim Whitelaw is taken sailing with a friend of the family. Jim is totally enthralled and from that day forward Jim decides that one day he will buy his own yacht. It is forty years later before Jim eventually keeps his promise to himself and this book reflects the story and steep learning curve during Jim's forty-year journey. Jim buys his first boat without too much knowledge and makes many mistakes and gets into quite a few scrapes. This book follows Jim's dream and nightmares.
I am not sure how old I was. Certainly it was a very long time ago from my now 61 years old. It must have been around 50 years ago, probably around 1970 or thereabouts.
Early on a fine summerâs Saturday morning, Albert Robertson, a close family friend, and also the highly esteemed and very well respected local dentist arrived to pick up my cousin Robert and myself to go sailing on his small yacht which he kept in Gamrie harbour. We were going to sail the yacht from Gamrie up to Banff.
Gamrie is the local name for a village in the north-east of Scotland which has the real name of Gardenstown. The village was founded by the local superior, Alexander Garden of Troup in 1720, and is today regarded as one of the major influences in the UK fishing industry.
Albert owned a holiday cottage in the neighbouring, but smaller village of Crovie, and berthed his yacht in Gamrie harbour during the summer. I donât know which model of yacht the âKittiwakeâ was, but I do remember it very clearly and estimate it at around 17 feet long. It had a drop keel and an outboard engine if I remember correctly, but things are starting to get a little fuzzy now. I suspect it was a Leisure 17 or similar type of yacht.
It was all white with a small porthole window forward in the cabin at either side. Whoever had painted on the name, you didnât get computer generated vinyl graphics in those days, had made a very good job of it, and on each side, up forward on the hull, not only was the name prominent, but it was proceeded with a very good picture of a kittiwake.
It was like going on holiday. I was so excited. I had been around boats all my life, my dad and my entire motherâs family being fishermen, but this was different. This was a yacht.
Maybe these ocean going sailors would laugh at me, but if a boat had sails, to me it was, and still is, a yacht, regardless of size, and yachts were exciting in a way which fishing boats were not. There was something about going through the sea without any engine noise, peaceful and quiet, free and gliding like a bird soaring on the thermals.
This first trip kindled an interest in me which was never to be suppressed, and although it was to be another 40 years before I bought my first yacht, the deal was sealed on that day.
I am not sure how long Albert had owned the yacht, but he certainly seemed to know what he was doing and imparted some of that knowledge to our young heads, as best as he could. Albert would sit at the helm and instruct Robert and myself in handling the sails and ropes.Â
The âKittiwakeâ was a light responsive boat which sailed well even in light winds. Around our coastline, there were thousands of Kittiwakes, a small seabird, like a miniature seagull, but cute and without the harsh predator look of the bigger bird. Albert pointed these out to us and explained where the yachtâs name came from. There were literally thousands of birds which nested on the cliffs of nearby Troup head, which has since been declared a bird sanctuary.
I am sure we had some sandwiches and drinks packed somewhere in a little bag, as we were always hungry at that age, but to tell you the truth. My memories donât extend to trivial little items like that, but to the more important things.
We travelled down to Gamrie in Albertâs Citroen. In those days there werenât many foreign cars on the road, not like today, so the car was a bit of a mystery too. I donât think I had experienced much beyond Ford, British Leyland and Roots cars. For young people who donât remember, Roots was the name which Chrysler had at that point. I wonât even try to explain British Leyland; you will have to Google it. It really is a different world 50 years down the road.
Arriving in Gamrie, 6-7 miles from our home in Macduff, we wound down the brae in a small village which was completely different from our home a few miles away. In fact it was so different; it could have been in a foreign country. The culture was different, lifeâs pace was a little slower, and they even seemed to speak a different language.
Albert seemed to understand the language though, and know the locals, so perhaps we would survive. Little did I know that only about 10 years later, I would marry a young girl from this âforeignâ village, and less than 20 years later, would move to stay here with my family.
Driving down the steep brae, you could see the harbour long before you reached it. It kept disappearing and re-appearing as we wound our way round the ever descending hairpin bends on âGamrie Braeâ. If you are reading this book, and have never been to Gamrie, then I have to say, you have missed out on one of the most beautiful spots in Scotland. Make a plan to visit, but best do it in the summer, as it can be a very remote and bleak place in the winter, like many of Scotlandâs treasures.
We eventually parked up on the pier at Gamrie, and the harbour was full of little fishing boats. Most of them were small creel boats (Lobster pot boats for the English), but right there, out in the middle of the harbour was the Kittiwake. In fact, many of the boats were out in the middle of the harbour. I wondered how the owners got to them, and how we would get out to the Kittiwake.
We stood on the pier and looked out to the Kittiwake and I hoped that I didnât have to swim out to it. We did swim a lot in sea in those days, and didnât mind the cold, but I didnât have a towel with me today to dry myself, and I had no âdookersâ (Swimming trunks).
Albert took off to the south pier and we toddled behind. He located a rope on the pier which he loosed out quite a bit. Back to the East pier where another rope was located and pulled in, bringing the Kittiwake right alongside a ladder so we could board her.
I was in my element. For the first time in my life, I was on-board a yacht. Young though I was, I would begin to learn a little about how a sailing boat worked, what all the ropes were for, but right now it was all a mystery.
I am sure Albert must have had some preparation to do before we were ready. There was a small red tank with fuel we had taken down with us in the car, and down the ladder. I guess that had to go somewhere. To be honest, I donât remember a whole lot. I just remember untying the Kittiwake and leaving the ropes attached to a buoy and the ladder to be retrieved later when we returned with the boat.
Actually, we never returned to the buoy. Although we did make this westward journey a number of times, we always left the boat in Banff, so I guess someone else must have sailed the boat back with him, or maybe he did it single handed, like I tend to do on most of my trips.
With the outboard engine running, we motored out of Gamrie harbour into the shelter of the âMuckle rockâ, which guarded the harbour entrance. We rounded the rock, and once out into âGamrie Bayâ; we got the sails up and shut off the engine. We began to move along by sail power only. I donât have a date, a time, or even a year, but this was the exact time when my love of yachts was born.
We sailed out of Gamrie Bay and out past Mhor head, one of the two mighty pillars which dominate and guard Gamrie Bay.  In Gamrie bay, there is a strip, just a few miles wide, which is made up of crumbling red sandstone. This strip runs about twenty miles inland past Turriff, and you can tell where it is, as you can see the old houses made out of the red stone. At Gamrie bay, at the western side, you have Mhor Head, a craggy outcrop which separates Gamrie from Greensides, a long sweeping rocky beach. On the eastern side, you have the massive granite headland of Troup Head, which is one of the most important colonies of sea birds in the north of Scotland.
High up on Mhor there is an ancient church, âThe Church of St John the Evangelistâ, which was built to commemorate a victory over the Vikings at the point of Mhor in the year 1004AD. The âBattle of the Bloody Pitsâ was a resounding victory against a foe that were pretty formidable, and the skulls of three of the Danish chieftains could be seen in an alcove in the church walls until about 1970, when the skulls were stolen. They were subsequently recovered but are now kept in Banff museum for safe keeping.
It is amazing how different places look from the sea, as opposed from the land. If you are planning a visit to Gamrie, then do try to get a trip out to sea to view the village from there. One of the local creel boats will oblige, and you could even have the opportunity to help them pull their creels. I remember my days as a fisherman and when you looked along the coastline at night, from the sea, Gamrie looked bigger than some places ten times its size, simply because it was built on a hill.
The house I have in Gamrie now is at the top of the village. It is only about Âź mile from the harbour, but it is up at 140m, or around 450 feet in âold moneyâ. From the sea, you get an absolute spectacular view of Gamrie, the entire village. None of it is hidden. Each part is higher up than the street below, so you see it all. At night, from the sea, it looks like a city, even though there are only around 200 homes there.
I am sure Albert had sailed this route a number of times before, as he was able to keep us fairly close into land and keep the trip interesting for us. Round Mhor head, heading west, you come into âGreensidesâ, which is a long sweeping bay, full of rocks with no possible landing place for anything other than a very knowledgeable local with a small boat. In days long ago, there was some salmon fishery carried out here and there are the remains of a salmon bothy at the far western side of the cove. There is also a very rough, steep track where some poor horse would have had to pull up a cart loaded with fish and equipment, and even their boats. The cliffs which surround Greensides are all around five hundred feet high, and any time I have been down there, I was always breathing very hard before I got back up to the top. For this very reason, it is very much an unspoilt beach.
There are a series of bays like this all along the coast, each one different and interesting, and all the way to Macduff, including one which opens up into a series of gorges containing all the water which makes its way down to the sea from the area behind all these majestic cliffs. These are known as the âburns of Cullenâ locally. The furthest east we had ventured as kids was the âSalmon Howeâ, but our mothers didnât know that. That was the sort of place you hadnât been told so, but you just knew, you werenât allowed to go there. It was a desolate deserted cove where, if anything were to happen to you, then you could lie there a long time before you would be discovered. It was east beyond Tarlair, up over the golf course and down the other side.
We sailed past the âSalmon Howeâ and into the bay at Tarlair. Now we really were into home territory. We spent most of our free time in the summer at Tarlair outdoor swimming pool, one of the finest in the country, in those days. I remember summer days with Tarlair absolutely packed with thousands of people, pipe bands playing, galas, paddle boatsâŚâŚâŚ.those were the days. We would spend all our free time in the summer there, and even after school went back, we would rush home from school at four o clock and be changed, a quick bite to eat and off across the golf course and climbing down the cliffs to Tarlair in as short a time as possible.
The cold never seemed to bother us much in these days, and I begin to wonder about the kids today, and even about ourselves. Is it the introduction of central heating which has made us softer? I donât really know, but right through until the pool closed at the end of September, we would be there until they shut the gates at 8:30pm every night. Our mothers never had to wonder where we were in those days.
Just off the big pool at Tarlair, there is rock, right in the middle of the small protective bay. Albert expertly took us right into the bay, inside the rock, even to20- 30 feet from the poolside. All the Saturday bathers look at us. Nobody had ever seen a boat come in there before. Robert and I had to stand in the bow and watch out for any rocks or boulders and shout back to Albert at the helm, so that he could take evasive action.
So we negotiated our way around the rock and back out to sea, in full view of envious bathers, some of which were our friends. I was on top of the world, so proud. Every one of those young boys eyes were glued to us as we sailed in so close to them, and then sailed off again. It must have been high tide, as I have seen that whole area dry with very dangerous looking rocks many of other times.
From there we continued our way past Berryden quarry, the âBlack coveâ and The Black Cove was another of these places you werenât allowed to go. These were the days before environmental awareness, and this was where the town dust cart deposited its load when it was full, straight into the sea.Â
It really makes you wonder. We have cleaned up our act so much these past forty years, and all of a sudden there are no fish in the sea, which had thrived there for thousands of years. Could it be that we are not as smart as we think we are, and we are actually interfering with nature and changing the order of things which have gone on for centuries?
Between the Black cove and the back of the harbour at Macduff there was a rocky beach, all of which we knew intimately, having scrambled over the rocks many times, fallen in, tumbled and gained many scratches, bruises, bumps and cuts, none of which I remember or did me any harm. Well, there was the one time we got cut off by the tide. I managed to jump across and only got my legs wet, but Robert hesitated a little too long, and in the end had to strip off, throw across his clothes and swim. He was just getting dressed again when our mothers appeared on the scene searching for us. It was well past our bed time, dark and they were pretty agitated. Hey, it was all good fun, part of lifeâs learning curve, and in the end, we are still alive, arenât we? Mothers worry too much. So do wives!!!
Continuing our sail, we had to sail out past the âCollie rocksâ, which are a pretty dangerous set of rocks just off Macduff, mostly submerged just out of sight unless it is a real low tide, then out across Banff bay before taking down our sails and motoring into Banff harbour and tying the Kittiwake up. Forty years later, I still remember this day, the day which introduced me to my expensive hobby. Albert, if you are reading this, Pearl (my wife) says you have a lot to answer for.
Since he was ten years old, the author has loved sailboats and sailing. As a teen, he vows that someday heâll enjoy âflying along on the windâ aboard his own yacht/sailboat. Two decades later, he sails a rented Hobie Kat catamaran around the Florida Keys and Orlando. There, his passion for sailing is rekindled into a blazing bonfire. A chapter is turned. A new life adventure begins.
It takes forty years for the author to keep the promise he made to himself as a kid. Writing in his sixties, the author looks back on his life and reflects upon how he discovered âthereâs something about going through the sea without any engine noise, peaceful and quiet, free and gliding like a bird soaring on the thermals.â
Along the way he shares both the joys and frustrations of chasing a lifelong dream. He takes us out on a âKittiwakeâ sailboat and we discover Scotlandâs channels, harbors, coves, lochs and spirited adventures on the water. Weâre also introduced to how a sailing vessel works, basic navigation, and how to enter a port under sail power alone (itâs not as easy as it may look).
Readers initially join the author aboard the Lady Too  - a boat reminiscent of the Wanderer of Captain Ron fame -and then the more spacious and updated Punto di Svolta, the âturning point.â Once aboard, we get a âcrowâs nestâ view of the surrounding countryside and various landmarks, marinas, channels, harbors, history, architecture, and culture of Scotland. Also storms, soaking wet clothing, an erstwhile engine, a temperamental anchor and some hair-raising âclose calls.â Also why you never want to anchor âwhere the wind can blow you down into a dangerous shoreâ!
Told in the first person, the narrative couples whimsy with wry wit and droll humor to create an engaging and agile story. Short chapters and paragraphs make it an easy read thatâs briskly paced and filled with colorful descriptions of people, places, and events.
Those outside Scotland or the U.K. may want to bring a map, as some of the geography mentioned may be unfamiliar. Also, prices are in pounds.
Finally, this fascinating, adventure-filled journey will have you chasing the next whiff of salt air, ready to cast off into the big blue. Sailors and sailor wannabes will enjoy this gentle, rhapsodic read. Iâd bring a sweater âfize you.
Note: I selected this book because I have a son who loves sailing and all things sailor-ish, including Hobie Kats. I think heâd enjoy it. You will, too.