Buckie

Contacts
Harbour Office 01542 831700, VHF12

To put things into perspective; this harbour administers Burghead, Hopeman, Findochty, Portknockie and Cullen as well as itself. Harbour dues can be paid here or at the Harbour Office in Burghead or on line at the link below.

The present harbour at Buckie replaced the original (now the site of Buckpool Harbour Park) in 1880. The original at Buckpool, built not long before that, was found to be very prone to silting so the local Laird developed the harbour we see today. There had been a fishing village at Buckpool for centuries where the local boats landed their catch over the beach and hauled the boats up in stormy weather. One has to remember that this was a notoriously dangerous area for fishermen before this harbour was built; the harbours along this coast and as far North as Wick were small, tidal affairs; the boats plied their trade throughout the winter before the days of weather forecasting, lifeboats and power, so somewhere as safe as Buckie was a boon.

These days, if you sail this coast, even in the summer months, you will have this harbour in the back of your mind as somewhere to run for if things start to go wrong. The well-built Buckie harbour became very successful and at one stage was the premier fishing port in the North East of Scotland. To this day it competes with Fraserburgh, though the larger ocean going trawlers tend to favour Fraserburgh. At the height of the herring industry Buckie was served by the railway but that connection was severed by Beaching in 1960 and nowadays fish landed at Buckie are transported world wide by refrigerated road transport. Now Buckie is competing aggressively for a share on the off shore wind farm industry.
Buckie harbour has a long North wall enclosing four basins; the harbour walls are high to accommodate the commercial boats and the visiting yachtie will need long warps here (although the writer was once rafted on the pilot boat in the SW corner of No 3 basin which made life a lot easier!!)

There is no doubt about the commercial emphasis of Buckie harbour and there is no way that it could be described as "picturesque"; there are no shops along the harbour road unless you count the wet fish shop, and it is dead in the evenings although there are a few pubs at the West end of the harbour. At the eastern end of the harbour there is a shipyard where fishing vessels are repaired (and used to be built) and beyond that are the remains of a basin used for fitting out ships built in the, now derelict, buildings on the shore. There is no doubt that the harbour could accommodate many more vessels than it does at the moment and its development over the next decade will be critical to its survival.

The town above the harbour can be reached by an inclined path from behind the "Fat Mair Fish" shop or, from further along, up a long flight of steps. Both of these approaches bring one out on to the main street (where one can catch the coast bus) which is well served by an eclectic mix of shops.

All in all not a particularly attractive cruising destination but if forced by weather or a need to wait for the tide for Findochty this is a very useful, well sheltered port and, if you cruise this coast on a regular basis, well worth a short visit.