After a night in the heart of Newcastle we headed back out of the Tyne and down the coast past Sunderland and on to Hartlepool where we locked into the large marina. The marina, sited in an old commercial harbour, was surrounded by a development of modern flats, large tracts of land that were presumably awaiting development and, in the far corner, HMS TRINCOMALEE. We found some evening entertainment along the strip of bars and restaurants just outside the gate; they were extremely busy with locals enjoying the bank holiday weekend, in fact in the sunshine it felt more like Majorca or the Costa Del Sol than Hartlepool!
The following morning we walked around to the 19th century frigate HMS TRINCOMALEE. She is Britain’s oldest warship afloat and was, before restoration, afloat in Portsmouth Harbour as a cadet training ship. We thought she was really impressive and, with all her rigging in place, compared very favourably with HMS VICTORY, currently under scaffolding while her masts are replaced! https://www.nmrn.org.uk/visit-us/hartlepool
Nigel’s sister and family from Harrogate joined us for lunch on board and then we headed off to explore the old town of Hartlepool and discovered that this was the first place in mainland Britain to be bombarded by the Germans in the First World War; over 100 people died here during a German Naval attack in December 1914. We also had an interesting conversation with a local fisherman who described how extensive dredging to establish a ‘Freeport’ in Middlesborough, had exposed toxic chemicals from the seabed that were killing fish stocks. Following a long walk we then found an excellent ‘pub’, the Rat Race Ale House in Hartlepool station, I was particularly impressed with some of their signs!
After locking out of Hartlepool the next morning we passed between Redcar and a large windfarm and then to Whitby. We had called ahead and the swing bridge in Whitby harbour opened to allow us up to our berth in the upper harbour. Bank holiday weekend was in full swing in Whitby! The streets were absolutely packed and the pubs were full but we managed to find an excellent fish and chip restaurant and followed by a pub with an entertaining life band.
Despite the crowds we were keen to explore Whitby so spent the following day visiting the famous Abbey, the inspiration for the novel Dracula and although there were not many Goths about we did find lots of folk dressed up in period costumes firing cannons, jousting and being generally eccentric! We had a couple of peaceful and fascinating hours in the Captain Cook museum https://www.cookmuseumwhitby.co.uk/ and then found a pub that welcomed drinkers who had bought their fish and chips elsewhere which suited us perfectly.
Tide and bridge opening times meant that we slipped from the marina the following morning at 0500! It was very dark and we were slightly concerned that although it wasn’t particularly windy, a north-easterly had been blowing for a couple of days so there was likely to be a swell running down the coast but, once off the shore, we were fine, running down sea and down wind, past Scarborough, Spurn Head, across the Humber and then up Grimsby, through a lock and into an old fish dock and our berth at the Humber Cruising Association.
