We're in the West from now on!

Hull was quite interesting. Our early arrival into Hull gave us a day to explore the town, and having Annelise (marine biologist) with us was great when we went to The Deep. This is the Europe’s first submariam aquarium. We basically had our own personal tour guide. The Deep was really good, and the main tank was brilliant, with about 10 different species of sharks and loads of fish of every description. We also went and visited the Maritime Museum, which was a bit of a grim eye opener to the old whaling industry. The only disappointing thing about Hull was the amount of rubbish littering the gardens and streets. A bit of a pity as it is a rather charming old town. Lizzie, Luke and Larvell did a really good job at the Nottingham Hospital, and the smile on one little boy’s face was brilliant – hopefully we will see him sailing next year, when he’s old enough.
After a really friendly welcome to Hull, we also had a really friendly departure. John from the Hull Yacht Club invited our new crew to the Yacht Club for pizzas and ice cream on Friday night. This was a great gesture and a good time was had by all. The boys had been hard at work all afternoon getting final preparations done for the next leg of our voyage. We also had an early morning planned, so the pizzas and cold drinks were very welcomed! Thank you to John for organizing dinner for us.
Another early tide for us on Saturday morning so we were up at 5am again. I’m getting used to these early starts. On board we have Bradley Boatman, Tom Broughton and Tim Able as our crew. We also have David Stead from Skandia as our volunteer for the week. I think our first passage was a little bit of a rude awakening for our new crew, what with the early morning and winds on the nose coming out of the Humber River. Unfortunately as we were coming out on the tide, this did mean that we ended up having wind against tide making the beat out of the Humber a really bumpy one, with short steep seas building up at the River mouth. All the boys were rather green and I could see that they weren’t overly impressed with this sailing thing, and I kept on promising that it would all be much better and very pleasant as soon as we were out of the river and heading North to Scarborough. And of course, as soon as we did, it did become a lot more pleasant. Pretty much perfect sailing conditions again, with a great 15 to 20kts from the East give us a good reach up the coast. The sun even came out for a little while. Unfortunately this still didn’t help for some, and there were a few seasick crew again. The afternoon was pretty spectacular sailing though, and the coast line is becoming really beautiful to sail along. It was also a rather significant sail, as we crossed over Greenwich Meridian again coming out of the Humber, then again as we headed west. This is the last meridian crossing for us – from now on it’s all in the West for us. The cliffs of Flamborough Heads are quite impressive, but unfortunately I didn’t want to get too close to explore them with onshore winds. Coming into Scarborough is magical. The town is situated below the ruins of the old Scarborough Castle which makes quite an impressive approach. Big cliffs and rolling green and yellow hills surround the town. I was a little bit worried with our earlier slow progress out of the Humber, as we are restricted on entry into Scarborough harbour due to the tide. We made it though and are happily snuggled into the old Harbour, with a welcoming wave from Neil (the Harbour Master) who also very kindly helped us out with a couple issues- thank you Neil!
Scarborough is a charming little town. It seems to be a typical old seaside town, with a busy fishing harbour filled with lobster traps. The pier has it’s usual entertainment arcades and funfair, but everything here seems to be just a little more authentic. After a walk around the Castle ruins David treated us to ice creams from the Harbour Bar, which is a great retro styled ice cream parlour, with award winning ice cream certificates dating back quite a few years.
Tim and Bradley have been hard at work in the galley this evening, and it looks like we have a feast for dinner. It’s smelling really good….. garlic mushrooms followed by lasagne – yum!