I am still travelling with Kelvin, and have been since we met up with each other again in Hartlepool a week ago.When you are doing the single-handed-round-Britain-thing it can seem a little odd to be doing it alongside someone else.I think we are both wondering whether its outside the spirit of things. However,it's been good comparing notes about navigation plans and sharing the decision of when to set out.It's also been good to have someone to share a pint and a laugh with in the evening.We go our separate ways when on land during the day. He loves tramping off for a walk. I like doing the arty-farty stuff.
The wind was a good constant force 3/4 westerly, so as dawn arrived we had the ideal conditions to sail down the coast. It was a great start to the day. Going out past headlands pushes you away from the land, and Flamborough Head is one hell of a place to want to keep your distance from. Consequently, I could not see much of Filey, which lies midway between Scarborough and this big headland. The cliffs are fairly high and vertical as you get near to Flamborough Head. They were glowing slightly pink in the sunrise.
The plan was to reach Flamborough about 7am, when the tide would be slackest, as it satrted to turn against us. It worked to plan but we were in closer than was good. The gently rolling swell which had been left over from the northerlies grew significantly and the waves seemed to bounce back off the cliffs to meet the new ones coming in to create a very lumpy sea. We talked on the radio about possibly tucking into Bridlington, but when were were beyond the influence of the headland things calmed down again.
Bridlington Bay fell away from us as we took the shortest route to Spurn head and the approach to the River Humber.The coast was therefore invisible for 3 or 4 hours, so the likes of Hornsea and Mappleton Sands passed me by out of sight .As the wind was now dropping and starting to move into the south, it was time to drop the sails. I started to read one of the books I had not been making much progress with. It's AC Stock's Sailing Just For Fun. It sounds a bit "The Famous Five Go sailing", but its about an East coast sailor's experience of logging up thousands of miles in the Thames estuary in a tiny 16ft boat. You sort of get the tone of it from the cover.
During the regular pauses to look out for crab pots, the strangest of coincidences occured. I looked up towards the mast, and due to the angle of the sun I saw a stream of what looked like spider threads steaming back from the whole length of the shrouds ( the wires that hold the mast up).I had never noticed this before.Had they always been there, or was it that the particular angle of the sune and lack of sails was making them visible? Then as I read his book he said:-
" One delightful feature of the Essex coast is the warning of an impending south-easterly breeze is given by tiny spiders who weave gossamer silk all over the rigging. One rarely sees the spiders themselves but in a flat, forenoon calm ...while anchored...I watched a procession of minute spiders on long lengths of gossomer silk move slowly across the river four to ten feet above the water"
The coincidence was increased by the fact that the wind was now from the South/ South East, though I can't believe the spiders had just drifted out across Bridlington Bay.I took a photo, but its hard to see them. Just below the piece of blue ribbon there is one which shows up the most.
The approach to Grimsby is a lengthy and complicated process. It lies about 9miles up the Humber. It's a wide, brown and strongly flowing river. It's also busy with shipping as it includes the port of Immingham. Finding the buoys to come up the channel is quite a challenge on a place of this scale.It's not that they are small, they just seem a lot further away than you expect. It was difficult enough on a clear day with a GPS and a chartplotter. It increases my respect for those who used to navigate these waters without such electronic assistance. AC Stock has no electronics and even uses a pole rather than a depth sounder to do his ditch crawling. It is avery different type of sailing. I feel with the advent of marinas and electronics these things have done for sailing what motorways and motorway service sations have done for driving. They have helped to get us places more quickly but we've lost a lot more than we've gained in the process.
It was strange to get through the sea lock and see not only the red Pirate boat of the circumnavigator I'd met in the Caledonian Canal, but also the unmistakeable boat I'd seen in Padstow, but had not met the owner. It seems we are all being grouped together in one place by the poor forecast for this weekend. The one in this boat is Welsh I am told. He set out from Liverpool and is going counterclockwise. He seems to have done a good job at getting sponsorship!
On the pontoon next to me is a set of wooden steps. Inside it there is a nest on top of an anchor. It looks like it is prabably a seagull's
It's now saturday morning and the rain is lashing down as I do yesterday's blog.Last night I went for a drink with Kelvin and an old mate of his who lives in Grimsby. Pete used to work in the same cigarette business as Kelvin .He seems to have had a harder job of getting used to no longer travelling around the world.He misses it terribly and doesn't like working in England. They both agreed those were halcyon days of easy money and good times in foreign countries.They were both made redundant at the same time.
Driving to the pub in his car, Grimsby looked a run down and bleak place. All the shop fronts had metal shutters, giving the place a harsh and hard apperance. This isn't going to be a place I shall want to linger, on first impressions.Pete used to work on his father's trawler when he was younger. The Grimsby fishing fleet is no more, as with many places. Grimsby always was at a disadvantage at being so far up the Humber. He used to go fishing up around Flamborough.That's a long way from Grimsby!Its no wonder that with the cost of fuel and the ditances that need to be travelled that fishing does not pay any more.
The trip now looks like this.I've decided going into the Wash represents too big of a detour. The options are either going to Wells-next-to the-sea, or making the very long single hop to Lowestoft.Even AC Stock recognised that the lack of sheltered harbours make his sort of anchoring anywhere sailing not possible. In many ways this is one of the trickiest bits of the trip.
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