East Coast

We landed back in the UK in Peterhead, and began our East coast adventure. Peterhead is a small town with a fantastic independent micro brewary called "Brew Toon" and very large prison. It is a place of contrasts. The town is surrounded by beautiful coastline to the north and south. It is dominated by the huge harbour and is best known for its prison. The prison was built there to provide the labour force to build the huge breakwaters for the port. The old prison is now a museum and is interesting, if not uplifting, experience. We were grateful to be tucked in behind these massive constructions as we sat out storm Floris, which topped the charts with gusts of 54 knots.

Once it was time to move south we began to encounter the common issues of east coast sailing. There are few safe anchorages, and those that exist are annoying distances apart. The weather has not been favourable for the majority of our east coast trip, with predominantly strong southerlies creating uncomfortable conditions and extending the distances due to the need to tack. In Scotland in particular, we faced the issue of being a bit too large for the harbours on this coast. After much consideration, we skipped Dundee and the river Tay and did an overnight passage to Eyemouth.  This is a picturesque little seaside town where we spent a few days,  

On our way south we stopped at Holy Island and Farne islands. Holy Island is accessible by land over a courseway at low tide only. As it was the school holidays, this meant the place filled up like a cruise ship had pulled in at low tide, and was near deserted at high tide. Unfortunately, castle and priory were only open when the crowds were present, leading to a disappointing slow shuffle around these attractions. The seals and the birds were the best thing about both places. You need special permission to land in Farne islands as it a protected bird sanctuary. From both places you have a tempting view of the impressive Bamburgh Castle. Tempting, because there is no anchorage or harbour to make going there a viable option, so Utred's birthplace remains on the list of places still to be explored.

Next we moved on to North Shields, which was surprisingly nice.  I had a preconception that it would be post-industrial and run down, but in reality it was pretty and had clearly had a lot of regeneration. On the way in to the Tyne there is a golden sandy beach on the South Shields side and some beaultiful castle ruins on the North Shields side. Newcastle city centre is full of grand old buildings, clearly showing the historic wealth of the city.  Our overall impression was of a vibrant, forward looking place. 

Unfortunately, we did not visit Whitby on a goth weekend (as it had been for Dave's stag do), nor was the steam train running due to the fires on the moor, which you could smell very strongly with the wind in the right direction. However, we enjoyed a sunny walk along the beach to Sandsend, had fish and chips, which is compulsory in Whitby, and went to another independent brewery up by the abbey.

The next leg of the journey was one of the most difficult to plan. We spent a long time considering where to go next. In the end we did three consecutive day sails to Wells-next-the-Sea, an extremely tidal creek on the top of north Norfolk. However, there were strong southerly winds and a distinct lack of places to stop along the way. It is only possible to enter Wells-next-the-Sea at one hour before high tide and so the timing of the passage on the last day would be crucial. There are also a number of wind farms, gas platforms and busy shipping lanes to be avoided along the way. Added to these obstacles we were also constrained by the bridge opening times on our departure from Whitby.  All in all, the planning was a real headache to work through. We ended up staying the first night in a sketchy anchorage on the north of Flambrough Head. On the second day got caught in thunderstorms at the mouth of the Humber, which reduced visability to nothing combined with gale force gusts, finally making it into Wells at the correct time on the third day.

In Wells, we got the bikes out and made the most of the sunshine to cycle around Holkham estate. The walled garden there was beautiful and the herds of deer enchanting. We moved off the quay and dried out on the sands, giving us an opportunity to inspect the bottom. Phil did some work on the propeller and I scraped the barnicles off the anodes. We moved outside the bay at high tide to enable us to catch the tidal current first thing in the morning and had blast around to Lowestoft. This sail was notable for being one of the only not upwind passages of the east coast. 

From Lowestoft we moved down to the river Ore. The entrance to this river also needed to be timed very carefully due to the depths and tidal streams at the entrance. Once in and safely anchored, we went for a walk around the pretty village with its square keep castle. The area is again a bird sanctuary with wading birds predominating so lots for me to watch.

The next estuary along is where the rivers Stour and Orwell exsit into the sea and has been a harbour for hundreds of years. Harwich is the historic town that used to be the main port here, but now most of the cargo has moved across to Felixstowe. We spent an afternoon in Harwich visiting the Redoubt and the Maritime museum, whilst based on Ha'f Penny Quay.

All of the rivers and estuartries long this coast are very shallow and only accessible at certain points of tide, even with our lifting keel, timing has been crucial. Walton Backwaters was no exception. On our way into this network of waterways we only had around 2m of water. Once inside Walton Backwaters we stopped at a marina for two nights to sit out some strong winds. 

The last leg of this East coast odyssey was to Dover. We left Walton Backwaters aiming for Ramsgate in strong westerly winds. There were gusts into the mid 30s and the tide was with us for a large part of the journey. Due to these two factors we made such excellent time that we decided to carry on to Dover. This did make it a full ten hour trip, but it was worth it to make it around the eastern corner and on to south coast. 

The East Coast has been a new cruising area for us and we have really enjoyed the places we have visited. However, the sailing along this coast is not straightfoward and it did feel like we were fighting contary winds most of the time. The final chapter of the season, back to Penarth for winter, will complete a circumnavigation of the UK via the Arctic Circle, and will probably be just as challenging as the autumnal weather sets in.