Swansong

 At seven in the morning, we left Blyth harbour onto a grey wet lumpy North Sea with a fickle breeze blowing. But the wind soon picked up and we had some reasonable sailing, running with a light north wind to start and then gradually the wind came round to the west and increased. The rain persisted. We did have a couple of close encounters with ships along the way. It is 6th July 2021.

In a bit of family fun along the way we called our auntie Doreen who has an apartment overlooking the Cullercoats Bay and told her to look out the window and see us waving. As we were over a mile out to sea on a slightly misty day we are not completely convinced that Doreen could actually see us, but it was a good excuse for a chat.

After only ten hours the rain gave up, so that at least when we arrived in Whitby it was dry, even if it was not sunny. As we approached Whitby under a moody sky we did discuss the idea of continuing our day’s sailing carrying on to Bridlington, another 34 miles so perhaps taking another 7 or 8 hours. If the sun had been shining and a strong wind blowing then perhaps we might have kept going, but after ten hours of rain and the breeze dropping to nothing our discussion did not take very long. The siren voices of Whitby were calling.

It is a noticeable feature of our journey sailing around the UK that each afternoon involves entering another unknown harbour. We have the chart and a pilot, a book providing large scale maps and detailed information including phone numbers and the VHF radio channel on which to contact the harbour master and marina. Often, from out at sea, the entrance to a harbour is not obvious. You head in and just have to expect it to all become obvious. There are often waves and tidal currents to make the initial entrance rather exciting. The harbour at Whitby is quite straightforward, with a cardinal mark warning you of covered rocks to one side as you approach the entrance. 

Once inside the channel it feels narrow but is sheltered and deep enough. It soon opens up and the harbour is lined with a variety of working fishing boats as well as one or two more interesting vessels. 

The marina at Whitby is beyond the outer harbour and a swing bridge allows yachts to pass through. We motored through the harbour and after a short wait the swing bridge opened, and we continued through to reach our berth for the night on a pontoon. We were greeted personally by the friendly marina manager and by a swan who seemed to expect some supper from the visitors.

 Each harbour is different, but we are now following a coastline on which many of the harbours require a high or rising tide to get in and out. This adds to the challenges of passage planning and makes the idea of a long day, a very long day even running into the night, seem attractive. For example, it might be possible to miss out the stop over in Grimsby. Now, I do not mean any disrespect to the people of Grimsby, but we do not mind if our UK round trip does not include a visit to that port.

We had arrived too late to get diesel at the marina so did our usual party trick of walking to the nearest petrol station to fill up our spare 20 litre can. Carrying it back to the boat is always fun, at least Mark seems to enjoy it. Tomorrow we will aim to sail to Bridlington, with the prospect of some wind but maybe more rain and then hopefully a seat in a pub with a view of the television. Despite our relative isolation we are aware of a football match that might be worth watching.