Geordie Land

We have had a couple of days of fantastic sailing from Amble to the Tyne and then from the Tyne to Whitby.

Amble's broken pier head.

Coquet Island lighthouse.

We left Amble and their broken pier head and hoisted sail outside the harbour. After rounding Coquet Island the wind was in the SW, giving us a reach all the way to the Tyne. With the wind strength varying from 18 to 26 knots we had two reefs in the main and one reef in the genoa and with the tide under us made the mouth of the Tyne in just under 3 hours. Fantastic sailing and the sun shone all the way!

The instruments are recording 8.3 knots through the water and 9.2 knots over the ground. A quick trip!

Entering the mouth of the Tyne we started to beat up the river and discovered that when we tacked our wind instrument didn't. The wind direction vane at the top of the mast was stuck! We motored the last mile or so up the river to Royal Quays Marina in North Shields and locked in at 19.45 for a quiet night in the perfectly sheltered dock.

Royal Quays lock.

The first job the next morning was a trip up the mast to fix the wind instruments, aided by one of the marina guys, Ken, on the winch. Fortunately the problem was a perished O ring which had lost it's elasticity and was jamming the wind vane, quickly solved with a replacement ring from the stock of O rings which I acquired from my dad, always knew they would come in useful!

Fixing the wind instruments.

Debbie spent the afternoon meeting one of her down line Forever business owners, Jill, and her 82 year old mum, Freda, who managed to get onto the boat for a cup of tea.

Debbie and Jill.

This morning we locked out of Royal Quays at 0900 and passed through the pier heads on the Tyne at 0930. As forecast, the wind at the start was SE so we motor sailed for a while. We had a couple of goes at sailing but, with the tide against us were making little progress until, again as forecast, the wind veered to the SW and strengthened, giving us another reach towards Whitby, great when a plan works out! The seas were a lot more lumpy than yesterday's sail and the wind wasn't as strong, just strong gusts under the clouds. We managed with full sail for this trip and the sun shone and was warm, no waterproofs today, and the admiral took her buff off, a real first!

At 52 miles this was twice as far as yesterday, building up to our next hop to Lowestoft, a mere 150 miles. We entered Whitby harbour at 1700 and were through the swing bridge and were rafted alongside a German boat on the marina pontoon at 1735.

Whitby entrance piers.

Through the swing bridge.

We had seen this boat and the family on board at a few ports on the East coast but hadn't had the opportunity to chat before. They asked us about our ensign. We fly the Royal Torbay blue ensign which has a crown in the centre of the Union flag rather than the standard red ensign. Our German friends thought that we were royalty and that it was our personal flag! Hope they weren't too disappointed to learn that we were mere commoners!

We will spend tomorrow doing Whitby, it's holiday makers and chip shops, and are looking forward to a visit from our friends Ali and Mark, who are coming over from Durham.

 

 

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