Thursday 2 June.eyemouth to Lindisfarne. 18 nm

A bright start. Sad to leave Eyemouth. We had to be away at 8 am in order to get tide enough to exit the harbour. We went out through the Hurkars remembering our night at anchor there… turned right and continued our journey south. The wind was kind and gentle, ENE and only 10 knots. Sea state calm. We finally felt we had a sailing day that was long deserved. Even the sun was shining in a blue ( if hazy) sky. We only had a shortish journey to the anchorage at Holy Island (Lindisfarne ) off the Northumberland coast, which we were really looking forward to. At Berwick upon Tweed..an hour or so down the coast……. we sailed out of Scottish waters and into English! J took our Scottish pennant down. Holy island is a unique place. A castle built on an island, cut off from the mainland twice a day by the tide. There is a causeway which links it to the mainland and can be traversed at low tide. It is now run by the National trust. We had been dodging lobster pot buoys all day, even though the wind was light there was still a considerable swell , as seems the norm in this coast. The wind changed to more southerly… annoying because we had to start tacking. We had a full headsail and main up, which does mean your view is somewhat obscured some of the time. Whatever the excuse , our pleasant day was dramatically changed as I spotted at the last minute a couple of joined buoys straight ahead. Literally on our bow. There was no time for averting action ….. we held our breath and J then pronounced , yup we got them. We were well and truly attached to two huge pot buoys. One the marker and one the float. We came to a sort of halt but the boat was trying to sail. What ensued was an hour or so of trying to get ourselves free. I had kept the knife from the old life raft ( day 1 of our journey) Whilst J held me off the back of the boat, I managed to cut us free with my arm submerged. The first buoy was the size of a space hopper.😳. Unfortunately the rope joining them was still firmly wedged somewhere in the rudder. That was obvious because the wheel would only turn very stiffly. We also had to take all the sails down without being head to wind so all a bit of a shambles . We limped into the anchorage… at least the engine didn’t seem to be affected so we assumed that the rope wasn’t round the propeller. The tide sweeps strongly through the anchorage. We got the dinghy off and tried everything to pull the remaining nylon pot rope from every direction, but it soon became apparent that there was no choice but for Julian to go under the boat. We carry wetsuit and mask for this purpose but it’s not something you look forward to using. We had to wait for slack water ( tide stopping to turn the other way), so he would be able to get to the problem and not be swept 😳. Tied on round his middle he managed to see that the rope was knotted in the middle so couldn’t just be pulled through. It was jammed up between the Skeg and the rudder. He tied the ends together attached a line which I then took back under the boat and up the side to the winch. Eventually just as I thought the line or the winch would break suddenly it came free! What an amazing relief! We were euphoric! Enough said of today. It was indeed a wild a beautiful anchorage but that was somehow lost in our minds.

What I learned today……Apart from the obvious!……..that we should not sail with the headsail fully out. Reefing it a tiny bit , improves visibility as we can see under the sail without difficulty.

Sue x