At last somewhere new - Newton Haven.

A man can only take some much showering and shopping.  The yacht race was over as were the celebrations in the yacht club bar and I was getting stuff growing on my bottom.  Time to make a move.  The duty man at the marina desk asked where I was going.  I shrugged my shoulders and said that I was probably going to anchor off the pier heads.  He gave me a strange look but I am used to that.  So we made a seaman like departure (as in we didn't hit anything) and scuttled downwind down the Coquet river with 23knots up the chuff.  In the distance was Coquet island with its lighthouse.




There was enough water on the bar not to make things interesting and I wouldn't want to do it with the wind blowing the other way.  I've seen those Ewe Tewb vids of yachts surfing over the bar!  We tucked ourselves as far up the beach as the water would allow and we had gentle night, even if the wind did sound a little demonic at times.  On the way out I noticed some lads fishing off the pier end so I had a look as we weren't far away and was disturbed by the sorry state of the northern breakwater.




It's breaking up rather badly.

 

The morning saw us hauling up the anchor and heading north as that was the way the wind was ablowin.  With the tide with us and just the genoa rolled out we trundled our merry way to - well I hadn't got that far, maybe back to Lindisfarne or the other Farnes.  Upon hearing the forecast I decided against those as it might me a little exposed.  Looking at the chart and pilot Newton Haven leaped out as a likely contender so we started the engine and turned left and rolled up the genny.  A few minutes later we would have missed it but we lined up the gable ends of the lefthand side cottages of Newton square and headed in, avoiding the Fills rock to port and the ice Carr to starboard, no worries.

 


The gable ends that mark the leading line are right behind the mast of the yacht.  You don't know what you are looking for at first but all becomes obvious eventually.

 

Being low water all the hard stuff was visible and as the last significant hump of the Emblestone rock lined up with the ruins of Dunstanburgh castle we turn to port, inside the reef but off the beach rocks.


We are a bit to the east of the leading line.  We are on the vee not the hump.  You may ask why we don't just use the chart plotter.  Weeeeellllll, the charts are not that good, even the large scale Admiralty charts don't really give you much help here.

Carry on until the sand dunes give way and we can see a prominent wood with a shed to one side of it.  That's where you drop the hook.  The rocks and reefs and land give you a brilliantly sheltered anchorage with winds from north-north-west by south to south-south-east.  We had a lovely day watching folk on the holiday beach, and even the sun came out in the evening.  We were sheltered from the strong winds but they didn't do what the forecast said and ended up in the north-east for a time and by the morning were in the south-east.  So we had to make a move before the wind got up any more as it was not going to be nice when the tide covered our sheltering reef.

Our fellow conspirator, the "Flying Pig" who turned up in the night,  left before us.  Maybe Kim can identify the class?

 

We soon followed and had a brisk mizzen and genoa broad reach to the Inner Farne.

 

Where we anchored in the Kettle anchorage.  It was swarming with trip boats from Seahouses disgorging the hordes onto the island.  I reckon the National Trust made 1480 golden coins that day as the charge for landing is £7.40.  I suppose some were children and family rates though.


As evening drew on the battlements of Bamburgh castle could be seen over the end of the Inner Farne and by five thirty the place was deserted apart from the rangers living on the island.  Deserted that is apart from the locals who must number in their thousands.  Puffins, shags, terns, gulls, seals, jelly fish to name but a few.  Quiet it was not, and it was rather smelly too.

It was a bit lairy at times as the SE wind had worked itself up and made its way into the anchorage when the tide let it over the reefs.


 It looks so peaceful but a bit of swell was making its way in and making Tutak dance.

This is the southern entrance and wide open at high water.




But by bed time all was calm but we were going to be rolled out of bed in the early morn I reckoned.  When the next low pressure system has flown across we should have some westerlies, a day or so maybe.  I'll end up back in Scotland soon, but that's not such a bad thing.

This last little clip is a 360 of the Kettle anchorage at high water.  Pretty is it not?