Time to leave the beautiful countryside of Northumberland for the old industrial heartlands of Newcastle and Sunderland. One on the Tyne River, and one on the Wear River. My destination was Sunderland – as one of my neighbours at the Amble said to me -“don’t expect a marina like the one here” – as it happens, I chose Sunderland Marina as my day’s destination because it’s a rare thing on this coast – an all tides marina. It did have cold showers though but was a bargain at £19.
The day started with blue skies, a F3-4 easterly breeze and very warm. The bikini came out for the third time this trip (cost per wear is finally going down). While I wasn’t exactly racing along, as long as I was maintaining over 4 knots with the breeze, I decided to keep the engine off. By the time I got past Blyth though, the breeze had become inconsistent and the boom was swinging around as the wind became flukey. Time to put my book down and switch the mighty Yanmar on – in a supportive capacity of course.
I was mighty glad that I had last been sea sick in the Bristol Channel and have not had a hint of nausea since. I think my stomach is now pretty cast iron (probably due to not having any refrigeration) because the sea was pretty lumpy today, maybe as a result of yesterday’s storms but certainly enough to make standing up unless absolutely necessary a hazard, and I felt ok. The blue skies had given over to a hazy white by the time I got to the entrance of the Tyne and I settled to a dull afternoon of rolling and pitching. By 3.30pm I was nearly at my destination, having past the Souter Lighthouse which is famous for being the first lighthouse in the world to be powered by electricity.
As though understanding that my afternoon needed perking up, eight planes flew over me in a tight formation and came back and forth several times. A few minutes later a Royal Navy Vessel, HMS Explorer whizzed up to me with a loud hailer and told me to move out of the Sunderland Airshow exclusion zone. This meant a detour further out to sea but gave me a good view of the show such as it was. Unfortunately much of the programme had been cancelled due to the worsening weather and low cloud. Luckily the Blades, the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight and a single RAF Typhoon were still performing – presumably it had taken the Typhoon 5 mins to travel from Lossiemouth unlike the 10 days it’s taken me!
The Blades 
Typhoon
Anyway sorry about the poor pictures today, not the most exciting, but that’s the great British weather for you! A lot of miles to do tomorrow, not a lot of wind forecast and drizzle – Yay!!
Vela Tour of Britain 2019 