Trawler Blogs

While Envoy is in Lefkas Marina, Greece, we are home in Auckland, New Zealand, planning to return to Greece late March.

THE FIRTH OF MORAY
The next best thing to boating is wandering around interesting marinas. I’m lucky to have seen plenty of them around the world, but few as interesting as fishing harbour-turned-marina Lossiemouth in Scotland’s largest Firth – the Moray on the north-east coast.

Fishing-harbour-turned-marina Lossiemouth

Bordering the Highlands this is wild territory, where temperatures can struggle to reach double figures (the days we spent there were around 7dC), vicious North Sea gales and huge waves often lash the coast and the har (fog) severely restricts visibility.

This scene looks peaceful but these massive harbour wall stone blocks were  knocked down by huge breaking waves

The Firth’s 500 miles of shoreline includes salt marshes, mudflats, rocky shores, windswept cliffs and surprisingly, many stunning sandy beaches. But even in summer the water is a very chilly 12dC, discouraging all but the most masochistic of swimmers. Nevertheless hardy types enjoy kayaking, surfing windsurfing and sailing.
The Firth holds abundant wildlife both within and outside its Special Area of Conservation, one of Europe’s largest marine protection areas hosting seals, whales, dolphins, lobsters, scallops, many varieties of fish and hundreds of bird species.

Unlike the Med Scotland is very tidal

Picturesque Cullen harbour

At its western end the Firth leads to the famous Loch Ness and the 60-mile-long Caledonian Canal completed in 1822 and providing access to western Scotland. At the outer eastern end is the closest of the North Sea fields – Beatrice, with drilling rigs towering out of the sea.
Numerous whisky distilleries surround the area, many of which are open for the public to tour, enjoy tastings and lunches.

This whisky shop near the distilleries has an unbelievable number of whisky brands

Whisky bar near distilleries

LOSSIEMOUTH
The quaint village of Lossiemouth’s harbour is found at the mouth of the Lossie River, blasted out of solid rock in the 1830s as a trading port for the nearby town of Elgin.

The narrow harbour entrance is parallel to the beach to reduce the surge from large waves

Access to this area is by train or air to Inverness 40 miles to the west of Elgin.

The RAF has long maintained an airfield here nowadays home to Tornado fighters, Sea King Helicopters and the 617 Squadron – famously known as the Dambusters. It’s common to see these Tornados thundering overhead at low altitude.
Fishing became the mainstay of the economy and the first modern seine-net boat was designed here. Lossiemouth was Scotland’s second largest whitefish port and a fascinating quayside maritime museum brings back to life the tough times the hardy fishermen endured. In its zenith Lossiemouth was home port to about 80 fishing boats and the present chairman of the Marina Board, George Reid once owned 18. He explained to us the industry not only provided employment for about 400 boat crew but also for an infrastructure of a further 600 associated workers including packers, drivers, chandlers, mechanics and riggers. Nowadays all we could see is a solitary lobster boat plus about six small open fishing boats.

The fishing fleet now consists of a solitary lobster boat plus the small boats in the foreground

Close-up of lobster boat (lobsters are plentiful)

Although we assumed fishing died out here in the 1980s due to over-fishing and depletion of stocks, George says this was only part of the story and the other part is the EU largely forced the UK to abandon fishing. Many of the displaced workers subsequently found employment in the oil industry centred around Aberdeen.

Trawlers still operate from some ports including MacDuff

This is exactly my idea of a traditional still-working Scottish trawler

Next posting read more on the marina itself plus a highly unusual submersible travel lift and the 54ft wooden motor yacht that went to Dunkirk.

FOR FOODIES Think of Scottish food and you first think of porridge and haggis, but a more popular “national dish” these days is a rich seafood soup called Cullen Skink. We’ve enjoyed delicious clam chowder in Massachusetts and traditional bisque in France, but Cullen Skink has a smokier flavour than the former and is heartier than the latter – just the thing to warm you up on a cold Scottish autumn day. Cullen Skink originated in the medieval seaside town of Cullen on Scotland’s east coast, now a popular summer holiday and surfing resort. It’s based on smoked haddock, which is a popular and heavily fished species found on both sides of the North Atlantic generally reaching a size of about 600mm in length and 1.5kg in weight. We haven’t tried, but guess Cullen Skink could work well with any smoked fish. The balance is potatoes and onions. First the onions are lightly fried in butter. Meanwhile the haddock is separately lightly poached. Add milk to the onions, then small chunks of potato. When the spuds are nearly cooked, add the haddock and simmer for about five minutes. Add salt, pepper and chopped parsley, then serve piping hot with fresh crusty bread and butter – it is absolutely delicious.