The Captain's Wife.

Mrs B was here for a week and I was keen to visit the Farne islands and the ever pleasant Amble marina.

We allowed a couple of hours to get down the river and  catch the north going tide up the coast.  We stopped off at Royal Quays fuel pontoon which is outside near the cruise ship terminal.  There is a shop across the road and the other person on board scampered over the lock gates to get there whilst I filled up.  Strangely St Peter's only has petrol.  They used to have diesel but no more.  By the time we made the pier heads there was no wind of course, and what there was was on the nose, naturally.  So we donked up the coast with the tide and made the river Coquet around local high water and had no trouble with the bar or the marina cill.  Here we have the pier heads of the Coquet entrance and....
 

Coquet island behind.
 
Once tied up we made off to find some food.  The next day we did touristy things and had fish and chips by the harbour.

Then it was off north again, bound for the Farne islands.  We had wind, not a lot  but is was in the right quarter so we fiddled about with the nylon to get tubby Tutak moving.  The wind was so light that there was no point in setting any plain sail, it just would not have filled.  We made do with the asymmetric and the mizzen staysail and romped along at 3 and a bit knots! 
 

 

As we were passing between the Inner Farne and the mainland the helicopter "rescue 999" was preparing to winch a diver off with suspected "bends".  Sounded more like diving with a hangover to me but still.  

We decided it might be better to do Lindisfarne on the Friday and leave the Inner Farne until later.  Less people on Holy Island on Fridays we thought!  How wrong were we.  After tucking up under the Heugh the new enlarged tender was inflated with the electric pump.    What joy but where on a 25 footer does one inflate the (large) inflatable.  The length of the electric lead dictated it had to be in the cockpit but the mizzen mast and rigging made it somewhat awkward to launch.  Still we made it and paddled across to the beach and upturned the dinghy under the cliff above the high water mark. Upon climbing the cliff path music was heard, sounding like a cross between the "Drop Kick Murphies" and " Wishbone Ash".  Ah, my kind of stuff.  It was the Lindisfarne Festival weekend with lots to do so we did.

The band "Pastures" were noisy and energetic and were enjoying themselves with their original music.
 

The drummer was shy though, I never did get a face shot.  Sadly their EP does not capture their feel at all and feels over produced, still the afternoon of free good music was magic.  After all that noise I took the Captain's Wife to a quiet place that I knew off and we fed the rather tame birds.
 

 The circus folk were practising in the ruins of the abbey.

 And Tutak was still there, quietly at anchor.

The other side of the hill cliff called the "Heugh" are the ruins of the abbey.

Here we look to the fairytale Lindisfarne castle through the abbey ruins.

When Lindisfarne had been well and truly done we set off in the evening for the "Kettle" anchorage in the Farne islands.  It was a bit popply so I set the roll damper and we had a pleasant night and were ready for the afternoon opening of the Inner Farne.  We rowed across in the new larger inflatable, it having not been deflated.  The blessed terns were dead set on drawing my blood this year.  Badly mobbed I was.  They had a right old go which caused much hilarity.  My name for baby puffins is "Puffletts", this may or may not be the correct term buy it sounds good to me.  Here we have one Herbert that has just emerged from its burrow.

Once satisfied that it was safe he called his sister out.

Once they were both satisfied that it was safe they.......
 

This is one of the terrifying terns, baby is getting rather big now.  We are a little later in the season than my last visit.

 

Check out the middle panel, let me get this right, is he carrying a head?  Whose head, JB's perhaps, or is it part of the saga.  I must investigate.

On the way back to Warksworth harbour this fine ship was anchored in the roads.
 

Instead of returning to Newcastle, the Captain's wife decided to take the bus from Amble to Newcastle so having and extra day without the sailing.  So we saddled up Shank's pony and went to see Warksworth village and its castle.

  
Imposing it was stuck up on a sticky up bit of hill.  The river Coquet meandered round the back of it.  A fine walk it was too.

This is the view looking seaward from upstream of the marina and boat clubs.