We are heading for Amble today ( 55:20.3N, 001:35.00W), which is just under 40 miles. The tides work well for us , with a 0930 departure from Eyemouth and a likely arrival in Amble around high water at around 1630. For what it is worth, the weather forecast was reasonable, with F4 or F5 offshore winds to start, reducing later to around F3. The fact that the wind was offshore meant that the sea was likely to be very calm with little swell, which would make the trip quite comfortable.

We had a little excitement first thing, whilst Alan was having a quick walk around Eyemouth. With uncanny timing, it was at this point that the owner of the mast less yacht that we had rafted up to decided that it was time to come along with a team from the boatyard to move his boat and have the mast stepped.  This is very easy provided it is approached methodically ; there are a lot of ropes tying the boats to one another and to the shore. Plenty of scope to suddenly not be attached to anything or, worse, think you are unattached and suddenly find that you forgot to undo a crucial rope. Everyone was fine and happy, and we proceeded to rush along just on the right side of chaos, narrowly avoiding wiping out our neighbour’s stern radar mast with a line from us to the shore.  Soon it was all over and we were safely tied up, having now extricated our neighbour from between us and the shore, at which point Alan returns .

Just before setting off I realised that we should probably refuel , and so a bit more fun motoring over to the fish dock and tying on to a ladder at the foot of a big tall wall of pilings, to have a fuel hose passed down to us from way up on the dock.  But all done without incident and we were soon on our way.

Although the weather was rather mixed and grey for much of the day, this was an interesting trip following the coast down past Berwick on Tweed  to Holy Island, then inside of the Farne Islands with views of Bamburgh Castle, and then down to Amble. For much of the trip we were sailing off long empty sandy beaches stretching for mile after mile ; all they need is sun and warmth. The offshore winds meant the sea stayed calm, although we had to manage the odd high F5 / F6 gust. In the end we just put two reefs in the main , which meant we were underpowered for much of the time but it took out any drama in the gusts.

We arrived at Amble at around 1600, more or less at high tide with no swell. This was very different to my previous visit in a big swell, which had more or less had us surfing into the river entrance. This time it was like a mill pond....and then we went aground.  Unfortunately for me, this happened moments after I had taken over the helm from Alan for the final run into the Marina. I had let us get too far too starboard and into an area where the river silted up. It was a very gentle scrunch to a stop as the keel dug into the mud, followed by a quick reverse out and spin around in the river as the wind caught us, to the great amusement of a fisherman on the fish dock. Having had his fun he now waved for us to come closer to his side in the deeper water...which we had of course now worked out . Anyway, no harm done and we were soon tied up in our berth.

Bogdan’s Blog

Plenty of amusement to day whilst leaving and arriving, with a lot of grey and cold in between.  Then they left me to go out and eat.  Time to explore and I finally got the top off one of the big bottles in the ‘ drinks hold’. Very warming, but really did not feel so good later.