I left Little Scarlet in Port Edgar for a week while I joined up with family to attend the wedding celebrations of my Scottish nephew and his Bavarian wife. We had a great weekend in Crieff catching up with family, Scottish dancing and eating and drinking far too much. Back in Edinburgh Marianne and I spent a few days ‘doing’ the fringe. We especially enjoyed Tom Skelton – a very funny man and husband of a friend’s niece – he’s well worth watching out for. More here - www.comedy.co.uk/people/tom_skelton
Nigel was back in Wiltshire catching up with his country lifestyle but a mutual friend, Steve joined me for the trip down the Forth and to Berwick on Tweed. We had a very pleasant sail past the gannet covered Bass Rock, past Eyemouth and in to Berwick where we were directed to berth alongside the local pilot boat. Berwick harbour was piled high with timber that was the ‘windfall’ of some catastrophic winter storms and this had formed a new business for the local authorities. Nigel rejoined us on our arrival and after a quiet night ashore and a quick walk around an interesting town, albeit in the rain, we had to depart to allow the pilot boat to greet a Dutch ship arriving to embark timber.
We made a quick passage to Holy island, anchored just to the north of the Priory and headed ashore to explore. The island was much more ‘built-up’ than I had expected. In effect it comprised a large village and during the time we were ashore it was fairly busy with tourists although the numbers soon diminished as the tide rose and the causeway to the mainland closed.
We explored the castle and the Priory but our strongest memory will be of the crying of the seals on the flats surrounding the islands. Initially we thought we could hear the sound of distant motor sport but then we realised it was the sound of thousands of seals, quite haunting and a wonderful backdrop to an otherwise quiet night at anchor.
The following morning we weighed anchor and headed down the coast, past colonies of seals and towards the Farne Islands. We anchored again, just to the East of Inner Farne, and headed ashore for a walk. In addition to seals, the Farne Islands are the home to large numbers of puffins, guillemots and gannets but we knew that there had been severe cases of avian flu and were unsure whether or not we would be allowed to land. There we no signs prohibiting landing on the small pier but we were quickly greeted by a National Trust ranger, dressed in PPE, who explained that he and his colleagues were focussed on the unpleasant task of clearing dead bird carcasses for incineration in an attempt to reduce the spread of avian flu. We were not allowed to wander around the island so after the ranger disinfected our footwear we were back on board and again off down the coast towards Amble. Even from a few miles offshore it was clear that the Northumberland coastline is beautiful with some spectacular beaches and castles!
Our arrival into Amble was memorable! After safely navigating over two and a half thousand miles around UK and Ireland a few metres was all it took for us to touch a sandbank within the outer harbour on a falling tide. Despite going hard astern and leaning the yacht to reduce our draught we were clearly stuck. We called the Coastguard to inform them of our predicament but to confirm that we were all safe and there was no danger to other people or shipping. The local coastguard team arrived on the harbour side with blues lights and sirens and a few minutes later, the local lifeboat team in a small inflatable arrived. Their efforts to pull us off the bank were watched by crowds along the harbour wall but were ultimately in vain so we settled down to settle down on our side as the tide ebbed away. We had touched the sand at just after 4 pm, low water was around half past six and we would need to wqit until around midnight to be fully afloat and free to move. The grounding was very gentle and provided an opportunity for some bottom cleaning but it was a relieve to see the tide return and by midnight we were free to move up the harbour to the marina. We were tired but were extremely fortunate that the only damage was to our pride!
The following morning we had a quick look around Amble, had a very good breakfast and bumped into the harbour master who grumbled about issues with dredging the channel! Pleasant as Amble is, after our evening in the harbour, we were pleased to be away and off to Blyth and the Royal Northumberland YC. I was keen to visit Blyth for a couple of reasons, firstly they have a clubhouse in an old wooden lightship and secondly one of their members, Jackie Tooes, is a friend from Portsmouth SC. We had a very relaxing evening alongside. We were joined by Jackie for a drink or two on board, ate some excellent smoked mackerel, caught by Steve earlier in the day and smoked by Nigel, and we enjoyed a couple of drinks on board LV50, the lightship. A very good evening.
After a gentle start we departed Blyth and headed to the Tyne and up the river to Newcastle city centre. It was very sad to see the shipyards almost completely deserted, the main activity today seems to be preparing reels of cable to support offshore wind farm installations.
Our berth in Newcastle was extraordinary. The Gateshead Milennium bridge lifted especially to allow us to pass and we moored on a pontoon adjacent to the Tyne Bridge; a perfect location for an evening visit to the Big Market!
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