Day 1 - Blyth to Amble

Thursday 23^rd June 2016 – Blyth to Amble – Day 1

A very special day, in which UK citizens have the opportunity to vote in the referendum to either stay or leave the European Union, I exercised my right in the morning at local village community centre.

Leaving Blyth

After the voting, myself and friend Jack busied ourselves getting things ready for our departure.  On a fine sunny afternoon we left our pontoon berth at 14.45.

After leaving the harbour, we turned and headed in a northerly direction in a fairly flat sea.

After an hour with the engine off and under full sail, we were making fine progress, passing the now closed Alcan Aluminium Smelting Plant, it was strange to see all of the high imposing chimneys no longer there, as they had been blown up the week before.  For a sailor out at sea, these had become a well-known landmark.

 

Goose-winging

With the light wind coming from behind us it was time to experiment and goose-wing the sails.  The main sail on one side of the mast and the genoa on the other side, to keep the shape of the foresail, a pole is used.  The first time I have tried this and it seemed to work well.  Next time if needed, ropes will be attached to the pole in the middle, the top and bottom to keep the pole level.

Around 18.00 the wind died away completely, on went the engine and the sails stowed as we headed for Coquet Island.

Coquet Island

This lies outside and just south of the entrance to the harbour of Amble.  We made our way through the channel which separates the island from the mainland.  Here we sighted our first seal, a young pup, popped up to take a look at what we were up to; then disappeared.

We passed through the piers and made of way up the river, a quarter of a mile to the marina and tied up on pontoon C8.  There to meet us was Alfie, a fellow sailor from our yacht club and owner of ‘Afar’, a motor cruiser.

We went ashore back to the quayside and a new fish restaurant we had spotted on the way but it was closed, as was the pub ‘Harbour Inn’, not a very good start for our first night ashore.  We did find the local chippy open, and with a bag of cod chips ate them at a quayside table, with the terns (seabirds) for company in the pleasant evening, the pale yellow sun laying low in the sky just above the ruins of Warkworth Castle.

Into the pub ‘The Schooner’ for one pint as they did not have the telly on and we wanted to watch the progress of the election.

A walk up the almost deserted high street brought us to another hostelry, ‘The Wellwood’ pub with the telly on, we followed the progress of the referendum but could not find out the final result and wandered back to the marina.

We said our farewells to Alfie, it was very kind of him to journey up to Amble, he bid us, a pleasant journey and fair winds to our adventure in Scotland.

The end of our first day on our passage to northern ports, islands and pastures anew, the day had been a success and may it continue.