The (not so Grim) Reaper.

The Scottish Traditional Boat Festival in Portsoy has been bringing more than 10,000 people to the tiny village for a weekend of activities and a celebration of the region’s heritage.

And this year, the popular event is scheduled to take place between June 24 and June 25.

Portsoy is just up the road from us.  I went for my walk this afternoon.  A sharp breeze.  But I espied this.  The Reaper is a must have at the Portsoy Boat Festival. And today she was heading out of Fraserburgh Harbour and as all the boats do they go right and then left if they are going up the coast.

Reaper is a Fifie Sailing Herring Drifter, the most popular design of fishing boat on the East Coast of Scotland for the greater part of the 19th and early 20th Centuries. 

Built by J & G Forbes at their yard at Sandhaven near Fraserburgh in 1902 for the Buchan family who lived in St. Combs, she began life as a two masted sailing lugger. With a length of 70' she was rigged with a dipping lug foresail and a standing lug mizzen.

There you go.  

This boat would have caught herring.  Thats what the North East thrived on, the herring fishing.  

I did get quite excited.  But that didnt make me walk very far.  It was humid.  I cannot win.  In the battle with COPD.  Struggling to breathe.  Tho the little legs go fast. I had a few stops to gain control of the breathing. If its too hot, if its too cold, if its too windy. B*****r.

But on stopping I get to enjoy the Gull Gang.

And a Jackdaw.

I think I can finally announce we have won the war on the rats.  Not a sign.

The Grim Reaper.