Hartlepool to Sunderland

The weather has not kept us in port at all this last week, so the day in hand we had in order to make Newcastle by Friday night was not needed. That meant we could have a shorter day's travel today, and hopefully call in at Sunderland. Julian had been keeping an eye on the marina's website, as they had announced that due to ongoing work on the pontoons they could not take any visitors in May, so he phoned them last night to check that they would have room for us. The guy on duty said “probably”, but to phone in the morning to make sure.

We filled up with diesel then went into the lock at 1000, which we shared with one other boat. It was only 30min after high water, but they don't seem to do free flow at all. Once we were clear of the lock Julian phoned Sunderland again. Yes, they definitely had a berth for us, so Julian programmed in the course. The chart plotter said we'd be there by 1500 at our current speed of 3 knots. That was fine though, we did not need to rush; it's neeps, so the tides are at most ½ a knot, and Sunderland is available at all states of the tide.

The forecast was for variable winds force 3-4 so we weren't sure what we'd get, but we got the sails ready, and when it came in half an hour after we left Hartlepool it was virtually on the nose. There was enough of it to sail though, and we had time to sail, so we sailed as close to the wind as we could, and turned off the engine, with the proviso that if out speed oved the ground dropped below 2 knots we would turn the engine back on.

We did motor sail a fair bit, since it brought the wind far enough round that we did not go too far off course, and we definitely needed the motor on the none making tack, but we were certainly sailing, and the wind moved far enough round to the west that we could sail without engine assist from south of Seaham right into Sunderland Harbour.

Julian was helming, and he decided that since he could sail into the harbour at Wearmouth he would. I got a bit distracted though. I could see what looked like a dolphin's fin really close in to the harbour mouth. I watched for a bit, and realised there was not just one, but several dolphins. They headed towards us to play and I got some good movie shots. They did not try to ride the bow wave, we were only doing 4 knots and did not have one, but they had a good look at us from quite close to.

Julian persevered with the helming despite the distractions, and we tacked right in to the harbour, only putting the engine on when we were head to wind inside to let me get the sails down. Twenty minutes later we were safely tied up on a pontoon in Sunderland Marina with the help of one of the marina staff who came and stood by the berth he had told us to take. Made it much easier to find it!

Had an interesting walk round the Monkwearmouth/Rokeby shore, where there are some very interesting and fun sculptures. We also had a look at the outside of the oldest Anglo-Saxon building in the UK, the front elevation of St Peter's Church, Monkwearmouth, which was built in the 680s. When looking out to sea by the Rokeby arm of the harbour we saw a flare go up, and the RNLI inshore life boat head out at speed to a broken down speedboat.

I'm glad we came to Sunderland. First good sail without engine, first flare fired in anger, and first dolphins of the trip!

Many thanks to the Sunderland Yacht Club who let us into their wonderful club house to use their wi-fi to post this!