After three days of miserable weather it was good to get out in the afternoon sunshine for a walk through the Aberlady nature reserve to Gullane.  We passed another cleverly balanced stone stack but it was the structure in the background which attracted out attention.  It was very visible in the sunshine just off Elie but I have been unable to find out what it is and it was not there last week when we did a similar walk.  There are two oil rigs anchored off Methil a few kilometres west and the Rowan Gorilla jack up oil rig was just visible off Burntisland.
 
Apparently last Saturday just after I took the photo of the Rowan Gorilla VII it was towed to a location off the Tay and Forth estuaries so perhaps there was a problem but it has returned and is now on the heavy transporter 'White Marlin' in preparation for its voyage to New Zealand. In order to get the rig onto the transporter the ‘White Marlin’s tanks would be filled with water until the middle section is sufficiently below water for the jack-up rig to be floated over the deck then the water would be pumped out of the tanks so increasing its buoyancy until the load deck is above the waterline again. It must be an impressive sight seeing it go down the Forth but a long time at sea for the journey half way round the world.

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