No screaming banshees in the night….so at 6am no wind! Dark and silent… T walked to showers…. M groaning in bed, Mike awakening! Lots of moaning about how cold it was…. but when dawn came… the sun with it…. weather in Port Edgar ok to go!
The Met Office did not agree… strong wind warning, force 6 and 7. However, when cross checked with other forecasts…. of smaller areas… not too bad. In the subsequent 7 hours of sailing in the Firth of Forth and a coastal passage down the North Sea…. in 7 hours we did not see a wind speed above 10 knots. The sea state was smooth at the start, slight throughout the main part of the journey and only moderate at the end.
Poli Poli departing her berth at 8am this morning, Sunday. Look at that sky! Margaret had “jumped ship” and took this photo from the pier… then caught the 8.36am bus from South Queensferry to Edinburgh…. to catch the 11.20am London bound train.
It took us less than two hours to clear the Deep Water Forth Shipping Channel fairway buoy before we proceeded east around the headland marked by the Fidra lighthouse. Before this we had examined the coastal landscape of Edinburgh waterfront and Mike spotted the Royal Yacht Britannia in Leith Docks.
Amazing picture taken by Margaret… yes that’s Poli Poli heading out of Port Edgar under the Forth Road Bridge…. and blimey, why were we ever worried about head room???
At 11.30am we passed Bass Rock on the inner passage and watched with interest the RNLI lifeboat carrying out a practice rescue of about ten high vis jacketed folk from a ledge below the white lighthouse. This landmark is quite an amazing sight…. covered in millions of seabirds and thus coloured cream white in their poo! T recalled that our lifeboats at Sovereign Harbour and Eastbourne carry out their training exercises on a Sunday.
This is Bass Rock… taken from the inner passage. Blue skies and calm seas.
Bass Rock again. You can see the orange lifeboat … it sent a small rib to the rocky ledge to rescue about ten folk dressed in yellow high vis jackets. You can see a line of yellow in the photo. See the millions of birds and their poo!
At about 1pm we heard on the VHF Radio that the swimmer Ross Edgley ( Round Britain )… was nearby. On the AIS system and binoculars we found his support boat… a huge catamaran… about 3 miles distance from us…. but only doing 1.6 knots speed.
By 2.15pm we rounded Saint Abb’s Head, located the leading line into Eyemouth Harbour…. and were moored safely by 3pm on a long pontoon in the Eyemouth inner harbour.
Eyemouth inner harbour at dusk…. Poli Poli is on the right, dark blue hull…. to the right of the big posh house…. once owned by a very wealthy smuggler. Who said crime does not pay??
Eyemouth is a small town in East Berwickshire with a population of about 4,000 people based largely on fishing. Here there is a fleet of 10 -20 vessels from small creel boats to large, sea going trawlers. Eyemouth is also remembered for the terrible fishing fleet tragedy which took place in 1881 when most of the fleet, some 20 boats and 129 men from the town perished in a terrible storm. I will try and visit the memorial tomorrow morning.
So we are now only a few miles from the English border !! Tomorrow Monday we will continue south to the marina at Amble. The homeward run continues…. and the forecasters say it will be a good week ahead!
Mileage today Port Edgar to Eyemouth : 51.20 nautical miles.
Mileage from the start at Eastbourne: 2,175.0 n. miles.
Toby's sailing boat Poli Poli 