Escorted to Eyemouth

It was bright and still early morning when Vagabond and I slipped over the cill at Amble to avoid being locked in for the day by the tide. We motored out into the bay, turned into the slight breeze off the land and hoisted the sails. Then we set off NNW to follow the coast, past the Farne Isles, past Holy Island and on, across the Scottish border to arrive, we hoped, in Eyemouth before the next falling tide locked us out.

The surface of the sea was calm and we picked our way through a puzzle of fishing floats and resting  puffin.

The breeze started to freshen. What had been a 5 knot waft, which barely moved us had become a 10 knot breeze. Vagabond loved it and our speed rose to a consistent 5 knots.

The wind (it could no longer be called a breeze) freshened further. Soon it reached 14 knots and Vagabond was now surging along at six and a half knots. Water broke over the bows as the sea state changed and a gust of wind reached 18 knots. ‘A reef is overdue”, I thought and turned into the wind to take in the first reef. This reduced  the sail area to about half the normal size; even so, our speed did not diminish much, for we were on a more consistent, even keel.

The sky became overcast and blotted out the sun.

The shore line of the unspoilt Northumbrain coast went past  with it's history written in the ruined castles.

The wind had not  finished with us. It rose further and a after it had been consistently at 20 knots for a few minutes, I took in the second (and last reef). These things never happen at convenient points in a trip, for we were just approaching the passage between the mainland and the Farne Isles at this point, and we were having to manoeuvre between a couple of fishing boats, whilst reefing and avoiding the hard bits on either side of the (admittedly wide) channel. In the middle of this, a screw in my glasses went ping and they (the glasses) fell apart. I couldn’t retrieve the spare pair from the locker (or the bits of the broken ones until the boat had been attended to....

The Farne Islands

Even with both reefs in, we passed the Farne Islands at 7 knots (admittedly helped by a bit of tide). Shame.  I thought we might have had time to have look at them.....

We charged on, driven by this demnted wind off the land – it was now reaching a consistent 23 knots and I was vaguely wondering what to do if it got any higher....

Lindisfarne or Holy Island

We surged on, passing the entrance to the Holy Island anchorage. I had considered going in there for lunch but in the present circumstances it was out of the question. The wind would have been blowing straight down the anchorage and it would have been untenable.

Inland, the sun had come out.

We were half way across Berwick Bay, at about midday, when the wind started to drop. In the space of about half an hour, it went from 23 knots to 10. I shook out both reefs. 10 minutes later, the wind had died completely and Freddie was on pushing us forward.

An hour or so later, I noticed a dorsal fin drifting alongside us. I shut down Freddie – then we were joined by two other dolphins, one smaller than the others, presumably a calf. They weren’t swimming parrall with us, but criss crossing ahead and astern of us, and diving under the bow. There were a couple of bumps below, which I assumed was one of them hitting (deliberately?) the centreboard. Three other dolphins joined us and we drifted along for a few minutes. But this wasn’t getting us to Eyemouth, so I started Freddie again. To my surprise the dolphin stayed with us and we were joined by three others.

They escorted me for a couple of hours in total and only parted company with us when we commenced our approach to Eyemouth harbour.  The rudder suddenly lifted, as if it had hit a rock. As there were no rocks in the vicinity (we were still in 30 metres of water) I concluded that one of the knocks I had heard from the dolphins was when one of them hit the rudder.....

We scraped into Eyemouth with just enough water under our keel to reach the pontoons along the south side of the river, where, with the help of a dutch yacht (which I used as a big fender) and its crew, we had our own space on the pontoon. As the tide went out,  with centre board and rudder lifted, Vagabond settled in the ooze.

Time to phone the Owners Agent to discuss plans. The snag with Eyemouth harbour is that it's down a deep ravine. No trace of a mobile signal.... Getting a weather forecast for tomorrow is going to be difficult.