Can we start cruising now?

We got to Hartlepool on Friday afternoon and did a bit of food shopping before heading to the marina. Bright sunshine and no wind tempted us to a drink on the quay side before going aboard. It felt like the start of a holiday since we were planning to leave tomorrow. Was this the start of cruising rather than passage making? That was certainly the plan with tomorrow’s intended destination of Amble, only 43nm away. We had a lovely dinner at Gracie’s restaurant, then prepared for tomorrow’s trip.

43 miles is at least a ten hour passage in Robinetta, and we had to be in Amble by 7 to have enough water to enter the marina. And we had to leave Hartlepool with a tidal gate as well… The alarm went at 5 a.m, and by 6 we were out of the lock, having visited the fuel dock and paid our dues.

We had been weather watching all week, and Saturday had been looking almost windless and 100% overcast. The reality was much better with bright sunshine and enough wind to be worth raising the sails. 06:40 we were under full main, staysail, and no 1 jib with the engine off. Unfortunately we were only making 1½ knots. We ate out breakfast under sail, then furled the jib and put the engine back on.

We made good time with the tide under us, passing both Sunderland and Newcastle by 11:00. We had spent nights in both in 2014, but this year Julian had much less time available so we were not tempted to stop. Plus, the wind had got up by 11:40 and we could turn t,he engine off and sail on a broad reach at nearly 4 knots in the sunshine.

Unfortunately the wind backed more southerly as the afternoon wore on, and the sky became gray. We could have sailed longer, and spent time tacking, but there was that pesky tidal gate to worry about.. We rolled away the jib and put the engine on, but left the main and staysail up for another couple of hours.

When we were 1 nm south of Coquet Island I asked for the main to come down.  We would soon be threading our way through Coquet Sound, and I did not want to think about the sail. The CA Almanac says not to go through the sound without local knowledge, but we felt we had this, having sailed through it twice in our dayboat Tiki in 2020. Plus our chart plotter had good data for the passage, allowing Julian to plot a perfect course.

Once we turned head to wind we began to feel cold, and the sail did not come down easily, making us both aware that we were tired and would be glad to get into harbour. Going round Coquet rather than through the sound would add at least another 30 minutes to the trip, so I was very glad we had decided to go through the Sound. A scatter of crab pots were the only visible dangers, but my course to steer through was far from straight. We got through without any excitement, but it began to drizzle, and the wind rose until even just the stay sail gave us noticeable lee way. We decided that the wind had changed from a Southerly force 2 to a Northerly 5 in less than 10 minutes.

When we got to the marina the depth gauge showed 3.5m over the sill, so we were in plenty of time. It was after the marina office closed, but I had called them earlier in the day and knew exactly where our assigned berth was, and where to pick up our information pack and marina access card. The Marina berths are clearly numbered, and I had no trouble finding ours. In addition the berthing master was actually on the pontoon to help with our lines, even though he had finished work 40 minutes earlier.

He looked at us, and suggested we had a cup of tea on board before doing anything else, and we gladly took his advice. We were in bed by 10, ready for another early start in the morning.