Farne to Lindisfarne

Woke at 0700 to persistent rain on the cabin roof, but by the time we were up at 0800 it was not even drizzling, and by 0900 Robinetta lay bathed in sunshine. It shone through the water, letting us see the bottom of sand and kelp, and the jelly fish floating through it. A tern dove into the water quite close; we could not see anything in its beak when it surfaced, but it made straight for Inner Farne, so probably caught something. A seal came by, and we could see it through the water, amazing!

A big trimaran called Noreen came into the Kettle at 0920, and asked us where it would be best to drop the anchor. It was a Dutch boat, and had come up from Harwich in one shot!

One of the mast hoops had come untied, so Julian raised the main a little to retie it. There was no wind, but it made sense to raise it all the way before we came off the mooring at 0935. We got the rest of the sails up as we motored gently towards the Longstones, seeing lots of seals in the water, then once we were clear of the Megstone we turned towards Lindisfarne.

We had got a little lift from the sails before, but what there was was now dead astern, so we rolled away the job and centred the main. No swell. Bright sunshine. Beautiful scenery. Bliss! (apart from the engine noise.)

 We tried trailing a mackerel line, but I was more worried about accidentally catching birds than excited about catching fish, so we soon stopped. Julian plotted a course into the anchorage at Lindisfarne, and we went very close in when deciding where to drop the anchor. I started seeing the bottom, and told Julian to back off. He did, but told me later that we had actually touched the bottom, and needed a bit more power to back off! We tried to follow the advice about using up and down tide anchors. It's the first time we've tried to use more than one anchor, and I think we need more practice, but we were certainly holding on at least one anchor when we rowed ashore to look for lunch. 

There are plenty of places to eat in Lindisfarne, and we had a nice pub lunch, then headed back to Robinetta. Julian pulled up the kedge, which brought up bladder-wrack with it, so we could not be sure it had held at all. There was a little wind over tide as we motored out of the harbour, but not much, and the auto-helm came into its own again as we headed for Eyemouth.

I went down below to have a little rest and sort some things out, then stuck my head up a few minutes later. As I did so we suddenly had some wind. We could sail! Finally!