passive smoking

crossing the frontier

These are the bridges at Berwick upon Tweed, just by the border between Scotland and England.

We had the most incredible day's sailing down from Edinburgh, with force 7 and 8 winds all day and we reached a top speed of 12 knots, which believe me, is going some.  It was exhilerating.  I got back to Edinburgh from Exeter last Friday and met up with a rather glum boat at Port Edgar in Queensferry.  They'd had a miserable day sailing from Arbroath and were feeling slightly fraught.  So we went for a slap up Indian meal and felt much better for it.  (My Grandma is doing OK - she was revelling in all the visitors she was getting in hospital!)

I had a quick stroll around the ramparts at Berwick (funnily enough I don't think they were built to keep the Scots out) before we set off for Blythe.  This was an industrial area with lots of wind turbines around the harbour and we had another stonking sail in slightly lighter winds than the day before, but only slightly.  We still averaged over 6 knots.  The marina at Blyth has showers on a converted lightship which was quite funky.

A short hop then to Newcastle, up the murky Tyne, through the entrance between North and South Shields.

Entrance to the Tyne.

We moored up right bang in the centre of Newcastle near the Millenium bridge.  It was a fantastic place to park up and just look at this brilliant photo of us (in the far right hand side of the photo) with the Millenium bridge reflecting in the river.

I spent a year in Newcastle as a postgrad student about 12 years ago and the quayside area has changed so much I hardly recognised it.  I would never have thought, 12 years ago, that the next time I came to Newcastle it would be by yacht.......

We are now in Hartlepool marina - ah, the glamour........

31.8.05 17:27