Night sailing can be fun!


Sunset from Lunar Sea's deck
 
 Overnight sailing can be a magical experience and ours was, apart from the cold, it was zero degrees in the middle of the night! We had a hot supper of fish pie which raised our spirits and once darkness fell we had done a third of our journey. We were well wrapped up against the cold with many layers and hats and gloves. At night the rule is we always wear life jackets, so we duly put those on and proved it via pictures to Mike our safety man on shore who was monitoring our progress on the AIS system.
Andrew in night sailing gear.

Josh modelling the latest in night gear


Me looking bemused.
 Andrew and Josh were doing the watches through the night so I went to bed. It was difficult to sleep because the wind had picked up and it was “lumpy”. We sleep in the forward cabin at the bow so when you are in the cabin you can hear the water wooshing by the bow as the boat moves forward. Every bump up and down through the waves shakes the cabin too! So at 2.30am I went up on deck to see what was happening. It was a lovely clear full moonlit night and there are surprisingly a lot of lights at sea. We had wind farms around us and gas platforms, various buoys (some with bells on) as well as other boats which at night must all show lights. It is dark when you are out of sight of land, as we were when crossing the Humber estuary, so you can see the stars much better because you have dark skies. Josh assured me that all was well so I went back to bed and fell sound asleep until about 5.30am when it started to get light. The wind had dropped and the sun was out and it was looking to be a nice day. After a breakfast of bacon sandwiches we had a very nice trip to Scarborough passing Flamborough Head and arriving at our destination at 2.30pm.
Approaching Scarborough
Yorkshire people are so friendly as was demonstrated by the harbour master who came to us rather than we having to traipse up to the harbour office. He was very pleasant and helpful and told us where we could get a replacement anchor, where the yacht club and showers were (in the lighthouse, that was a first) and a bit about Scarborough. It seemed a very pleasant town with a medieval castle ruins on the hill, an old church where Anne Bronte is buried, several grand Victorian hotels and two lovely sandy beaches. After a nap we had a well-earned drink in the evening at the yacht club in the lighthouse where we had a very friendly welcome and were given more useful and helpful information. A couple of other boats had come to Scarborough because of the problem at Hull so we were swapping sailing tales. We were all exhausted so an early night was in order with time to explore tomorrow .

Safely moored up in Scarborough Harbour

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