Cullen and Portknockie

Cullen HM 01542 831700 (located at Buckie)
Portknockie HM 01542 831700 (located at Buckie),

Both of these harbours are administered by Morayshire County Council from Buckie, there is no watchkeeper stationed at either harbour.

Of the two harbours, Portknockie is more accessible as Cullen is very tidal but on the other hand Cullen is the larger of the two towns and has more to offer in the way of shops and pubs. They both have inner and outer harbours and there are small pontoons in both inner harbours occupied by local boat owners.

Portknockie harbour is accessible at all states of the tide there being a least depth at the entrance of 2m and a fin keeler will stay afloat throughout the tide berthed against the wall just inside the outer harbour. You will only get in to Cullen a couple of hours either side of HW. Both harbours are open to the NW and in any set from the Northern quadrant there will be surge in their outer harbours; it is interesting to note from a close in Google Earth shot of Portknockie that there are a couple of local boats moored across the corners of the outer harbour away from the wall. The view of Cullen from the sea is dominated by the disused railway viaduct to the west of the harbour, whilst Portknockie harbour entrance is difficult to identify as the harbour wall is the same colour as the cliffs behind it (though the town on the cliffs overlooking the harbour is an easily identified feature from miles away)

Cullen is the older of the two towns, there having been a fishing village here since time immemorial. First settled by Picts, it has a rich history. The original village was around the mouth of the stream which flows into the bay beneath the railway arches; it moved inland up the banks of that stream but was eventually moved half a mile to the east which is the sight of the present town. It is said that the move to the east was made by one of the Lairds when they developed Cullen House, because the old town spoiled his view!!

Portknockie came to life in the seventeenth century and flourished along with Cullen during the height of the herring fishing; it's now mainly a residential village and, although it had, at one time, nearly fifty shops and businesses they have all but vanished and most people travel to Buckie for their domestic needs although there is a slightly larger Co-op in Cullen.

Like most of the other harbours on this coast the two towns flourished in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries as a fishing villages; they were connected to the railway system (hence the viaduct) in the mid nineteenth century until the Beeching axe fell in the 1960s. The original decline in the towns' fortunes was not brought about by the diminishing fish stocks but, like the other small harbours, by the increasing industrialisation of the industry making them inaccessible to the larger, more profitable boats. Even today there are boats officially based in these harbours but which seldom use them, plying their trade out of Buckie, Burghead or Fraserburgh.

Both harbours are popular with recreational sailors on this coast from both Lossiemouth and Banff/Whitehills and for a cruising sailor from further afield with time to dally they are well worth a visit.