MRI Newsletter - Coastal Notes 2005

Coastal Notes - 14 December 05

Although MRI will be closed over Christmas and New Year, the Search and Rescue service never shuts down and team members will be just as ready to respond as at any other season.  In the past we’ve been called out on both Christmas and New Year’s Day.  ...

Coastal Notes 23 November 05

Earlier this year squid were bring fished off our coast in commercial quantities for the first time; now, we see velvet crabs here in abundance, providing a welcome addition to the creel boats’ catches. ...

Coastal Notes - 16 November 05

Bemused bystanders have looked on in amazement over the past couple of weeks as MRI’s 3 lifeboats have been treated in a seemingly cavalier fashion.  They’ve had their sponsons deflated and been filled with water!  ...

Coastal Notes - 1 November 05

Abandon a modern day sailor in the vast Pacific without the benefit of present day technology and you will have a very worried person.  Yet, 3,000 years ago the Polynesians could navigate the Pacific by their sense of touch ...

Coastal Notes - 19 October 05

Last Saturday morning MRI took part in a multi-agency exercise, co-ordinated by HM Coastguard.  Involved in the exercise were coastguard rescue teams from Stonehaven and Gourdon, 2 MRI SAR boats and the Trossachs Search and Rescue Team (TSART) with their dogs ...

Coastal Notes - 5 October 05

The squid boats are still busy working off our coast.  It’s a reminder of how things used to be when there were always numbers of vessels to be seen – line boats, trawlers, seine netters or creel boats, as well as coastal steamers, naval vessels and cargo ships ...

Coastal Notes - 21 September 05

MRI is a visually stimulating place this week thanks to the NEOS art exhibition.  With three talented artists in the building, the walls and corridors have become an impromptu art gallery, with paintings filling the area with a multitude of jewel-like colours. ...

Coastal Notes - 7 September 05

For the first time in years, around 12 boats up to 24m in length are working off the Kincardineshire coast.  However, they are not fishing for cod and haddock, nor are they seeking herring and mackerel: their target is squid.  ...

Coastal Notes - 23 Aug 05

The weather was kind enough last Sunday for the Harbour Festival to be a resounding success, although there were a few moments during the morning set up when the wind threatened to turn the stalls into sails and take off ...

Coastal Notes - 9 Aug 05

Whirlpools are a natural phenomenon that can be seen in all sorts of places; at one end of the scale is the vortex created as the last of the bath water runs away: at the other end is the awesome power of major whirlpools in the sea.  The largest one is generally reckoned to be ...

Coastal Notes - 27 Jul 05

Recent events in London have brought not only the role of the police, but also that of rescue services into sharp focus.  It was with a sense of disbelief that we watched the news of the bombings at Sharm el Sheik unfold this week.  Such atrocities always horrify anyway, but the impact is so much greater when there is a personal factor.  Two of MRI’s trustees were there ...

Coastal Notes - 12 Jul 05

Over the past few weeks there have been numerous memorials, tributes and celebrations to mark the 60th anniversary of the ending of the Second World War.  Of course, the politician most connected to that difficult era of our history has to be Winston Churchill ...

Coastal Notes - 28 Jun 05

This very welcome spell of fine weather has attracted many people onto Stonehaven beach.  There is much more sand than for many years making it a great place for youngsters to build the mandatory sand castles and dig holes  ...

Coastal Notes - 12 Jun 05

On Monday of this week 2 staff from MRI set out for Madeira to conduct a training programme for their new life boat service.  This is being carried out as part of an EU funded project to develop Search & Rescue and waterborne emergency response in the area bounded by Cape Verde, the Azores and Madeira  ...

Coastal Notes - 31 May 05

It’s been a good week for MRI.  Monday evening’s hairdressing demonstration given by Martyn and Vince of Renaissance attracted a large and enthusiastic audience, raising in excess of £2,000.  The lady who won the raffle prize  ...

Coastal Notes - 17 May 05

It’s getting ever closer!  The new cafe at the harbour will open imminently.  To be known as ‘The Boathouse’ it will serve a range of teas, coffees, and snacks, as well as hot and cold meals   ...

Coastal Notes - 3 May 05

One of MRI’s SAR Team, Neil Innes, along with his wife Evita, has recently returned from a holiday at Sharm el Sheik on the Red Sea.  Sharm el Sheik is a popular diving centre, attracting visitors from all over the world.  Every day around 220 boats leave the harbour carrying divers  ...

Coastal Notes - 19 April 05

Lifeboats aboard ship originally were just rowing boats.  Following the wreck of the ‘Orion’ off the Scottish coast in 1849 when over 100 passengers lost their lives as the crew commandeered the 2 available rowing boats, clergyman Edward Berthon designed a collapsible wood and canvas lifeboat.    ...

Coastal Notes - 5 April 05

Stonehaven, Gourdon and Johnshaven easily spring to mind as the harbours along the Kincardineshire coast; those with a bit more local knowledge would add Catterline, Cowie, Skateraw and Downies.  Not so many would come up with Miltonhaven   ...

Coastal Notes - 22 Mar 05

At last year’s Harbour Festival there was an Irish curragh on display, courtesy of the Eyemouth Boat Museum.  Looking at that frail craft, made up from ox skin, and bits of bent wood, it’s hard to imagine it being used in anything but the quietest of waters  ...

Coastal Notes - 8 Mar 05

Anyone who has stood at Stonehaven harbour in a storm and seen the power of the waves crashing over the breakwater will appreciate the vast energy contained in the seas.  The sea potentially has enough energy to fuel the world’s needs many time over  ...

Coastal Notes - 22 Feb 05

MRI is gratified, surprised and honoured to be chosen to receive a Diced Cap Charitable Trust Good Samaritan award at a ceremony in Aberdeen on Thursday evening.  The film star, James Cosmo, of Braveheart, Trainspotting and Roughnecks fame will carry out the presentation   ...

Coastal Notes - 9 Feb 05

Dame Ellen MacArthur.  What an accolade, but how well deserved!  Ellen took on the challenge of her life and won, knocking almost a day and a half off a record that all the experts felt would still be in place 10 years hence.  She endured cold, carried out repairs to the mast in a storm, went through the agony of seeing   ...

Coastal Notes - 12 Jan 05

In common with the rest of the world, we watched in horror as the trauma of the tsunami unfolded on our television screens.  It was almost too much to believe, yet the pictures were all too real and awful  ...

 

[To see Coastal Notes for 2008, click here.]
[To see Coastal Notes for 2007, click here.]
[To see Coastal Notes for 2006, click here.]
[To see Coastal Notes for 2004 and 2003, click here.]

 

Page updated: 28 June, 2006

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