Amble

We arrived and launched at Amble yesterday and now Meg is tied up in the marina and hopefully the week will bring some decent sailing. The slipway is next to the yacht club and slopes very gently so needs to be used around high water. It's fairly well surfaced but has a grassy rounabout at the top of the slipway. Clearly the idea is to turn at the roundabout and reverse down the the water. Unfortunately its too small to turn a car and trailer so a bit of manhandling is required. This is no great challenge with a Bayraider but a heavier boat might be more difficult. I've not used a marina mooring before and with easy parking and all the facilities at hand its certainly more civilsed than a drying mooring and having to use a tender to get aboard.

Staithes

We have just spent the last week on the Yorkshire coast at Staithes. It’s a small village a few miles north of Whitby with a drying harbour. It a cracking place for a holiday as the village is largely car free and the harbour has a beach area for the kids to play. I contacted the harbour master a few months ago about a mooring and tied lines into the chains running across the harbour. The road down to the harbour is very steep and the slipway is even steeper and I wouldn’t launch from there again rather I think it would be a lot easier to launch at Whitby and sail the 6 miles to Staithes. The sailing was good aside from a few problems with a rough running outboard. It was my first time sailing on tidal waters in many years and it feels a lot more adventurous than Rutland especially with the spectacular surf that runs near Staithes harbour and the imprssive cliffs. Highlight of the week was sailing down towards Whitby with the wind on the beam and the tide behind us a making a good 6 Knots over the ground. The return leg was considerably slower. The lowlight was reefing while being seasick in a bit of a swell. The area makes for good sailing and hopefully I’ll get to launch at Whitby for a weekends sailing in the next couple of months. The area is heavily potted but all seemed to be well marked. Unfortunately I have no pictures as my phone got a dunking. Next trip is Amble in acouple of weeks hopefully the weather will be good and we'll see some Seals.