Adrian and Sheenagh joined at Hartlepool on Saturday, and it was to be a short trip up to Sunderland ( 54:55.1N, 001:22>1W), today together with Sam, my nephew, who joined just for this day sail. Unfortunately this turned out to be a rather grey and wet day, with a lumpy swell rather more than we would have expected for the F4 , gusting 5 that we experienced.  The wind was generally from the north, meaning that we were motorsailing most of the 20 miles, but we did manage an hour’s good sailing when the wind shifted a little.

The main issue on this trip, which was to be repeated once or twice in coming days, was the need to keep a look out for large floating branches and even trees, swept out to sea after all the heavy rains and swollen rivers. We even heard a navigation alert from the coastguard concerning a large tree spotted near the Tyne, a little further north .

Sunderland turned out to be a nice and quiet marina, although for some reason it suffered from some minor swell coming in from river and sea, which was just enough to keep all the boats bobbing about gently.  The marina was tucked away and it was difficult to see how this swell got in. We also saw more big logs in the river and marina, and the contrast between open sea, and the brown muddy waters of the river mouth was very clear.

The forecast for Tuesday was fairly grim, with heavy rain and potentially strong winds later, so we elected to stay in Sunderland on Tuesday, and explore the ‘toon’. Turned out to be surprisingly pleasant ( apart from the weather),with a lot of regeneration building in evidence, and the old industrial wasteland of the old docksides turned into a very nice linear park and pathway into town. We spent most of the afternoon in the museum and winter garden ( free and dry ), and learnt rather more about Sunderland than we either expected, or in all likelihood, needed to.  Just ask if you need to know anything about the Venerable Bede and his Abbey, mining, steel, ship building, glass making, pottery....seems there is nothing that Sunderland has not had a go at. We also now know why the Stadium of Light football stadium is so called, which is fairly advanced level Sunderland trivia.