Contacts:  HM (Ian) 01593 721325. Very Part Time.

Anyway, for some reason the local Laird (a Captain Sinclair) decided to develop Lybster and the layout of the village on the cliffs is still as he designed it. By 1845 (only a hundred years after Culloden) the harbour was home to a couple of hundred boats and was booming; it is hard to imagine what it would have been like; the population grew to over three thousand, all of them employed in the catching, curing, and export of herring; there were fishermen, coopers, gutters, smokers, curers and countless labourers who by 1859 supported a fleet of over 350 boats.

There was a problem though, Lybster was very vulnerable to the vicious storms which pound these latitudes during the winter and the harbour was wrecked several times, each time being rebuilt even stronger until no one (including the Government) would fund it any more.  That, and the failure of the railway to cash in on the boom here, meant that Lybster was one of the first ports to suffer from the decline in the fisheries; it never had steam winches etc for offloading catches and was narrow in access and was on its way out even before the railway was on its way in!! 

You can imagine what it was like approaching low tide with a couple of hundred boats all trying to get in and find somewhere convenient to land their catch; it must have been bedlam so it is unsurprising that the fishermen started to move to larger harbours.

There were attempts to revive it after the First World War but these failed; the inner harbour wasn’t built until the 1950s and, although it struggles on, it’s a brute of a place to get to by road transport so the fishing is back to what it was centuries ago, albeit served by power boats instead of rowing skiffs, but it’s a bit of potting, long lining and some small beam trawlers.
Of note is the recent development of Waterlines in one of the old warehouses on the harbour. This is a combined museum, café and amenities building and you will have to visit here to get a key to the toilets. It’s a quiet spot frequented by fishermen, yachties and ornithologists in equal measure; the hike up to the village is long and steep so if you are looking for provisions you’ll need your going-ashore trolley

There is a Dylan Winters Keep Turning Left video which includes this harbour. Lybster starts about minute 26

There are no large scale charts of Lybster and even zooming in ....

You are unlikely to find a mooring against the wall in the inner harbour....

As has been said there are showers, toilets and a laundrette located in the Waterlines building. Fresh water may be obtained from a tap on the south side of the inner harbour. There is no shore power and, contrary to the information in whatever pilot book or almanac you consult, there is no fuel here, the garage closed several years ago and the nearest fuel is at Wick.

You will find limited provisions in a mini-market in the Upper village and there’s a Post Office, bank and ATM there as well.

Up in the village on the cliffs there are a couple of pubs, a fish and chipper and a restaurant in the upper village but it is not renowned for its night life. At the far end at the junction with the main road is the Portland Arms Hotel/Restaurant which appears to serve good food.