Lindisfarne

After more than a month in Scotland, Bonita is now back in English waters and our Scottish courtesy flag has been folded away till whenever it might be needed again. This morning we turned Bonita around in her berth with help from Edgar towing the bow round with his dinghy. We then left Eyemouth shortly after low water. The narrow entrance channel was completely blocked by a dredger at work, but we called him up and he seemed happy enough to stop work to let us pass by.

We had hoped to be able to sail but found a light head wind so motored the 20 or so miles to Holy Island (Lindisfarne). Of the Gaffers, Barbarossa, Onward,Recipe and Hilda are here too. You have to anchor inside the island and when we were here 10 years ago we had the greatest difficulty recovering the anchor as it had fouled an old mooring cable. We put a tripping line on the anchor today and hope things will be better when we go tomorrow. D and I rowed ashore to have a look around and see some of the reminders of the earliest days of Christianity in England and stories of the exploits of the early saints. We also managed to get fish and chips in the Crown and Anchor, at a time in the evening when most pubs have stopped serving food. 

The pictures show Barbarossa, Onward of Ito and Bonita at anchor off Holy Island, all with a black ball in the rigging as the daytime sign that we are anchored.

The last picture taken at dusk shows a calm sea and our riding light lit and hoisted in the rigging in case any other vessel should arrive in the dark. Most boats today have electric riding lights-or none at all- but Bonitas riding light is a proper parrafin hurricane lamp that is of unknown age but certainly many decades old. As darkness comes we are surrounded by the sounds of the many seals calling to each other as they go noisily about their business.