Whitby

We left Blyth early this morning - about 4.30- to catch the tide. Our all weather crew are D, and Hugo who is getting to grips with the principles of sailing. Unfortunately as we were motoring out of the harbour the engine suddenly started producing ominous sounding grinding noises. Fearing the worst, we turned round and went back to the yacht harbour. It turned out that the cause was the pulley on the cooling water pump touching the engine bearer when under load. I replaced the belt that drives the pump with a new one and that seemed to cure the problem. We set out again an hour or so later.

Sadly it was rather a frustrating sail. There was very little wind and there was a heavy swell left over from several days of strong northerly winds so the boat rolled around a bit. We motor- sailed most of the way so it was lucky the engine was OK.

We approached Whitby harbour shortly after low water, and I was anxious that there might not be enough water in the entrance, especially as there was a 2m high swell breaking on the shore. However we radiod the Harbour Master and he was confident there would be enough water. He was right of course: the depths went down to 0.5m under the keel at the shallowest bit but we never touched the bottom.

We tied up waiting for the swing bridge to open to go into the inner harbour, and were joined by Indian Runner, who had come today from Hartlepool.

The picture shows Bonita waiting for the bridge. Ahead of her is the Endeavour Bark, supposedly a copy of Captain Cooks boat. James Cook is one of Whitbys most famous sons.There are several supposed copies of the Endeavour of various shapes and sizes in Whitby. They look as though they might be good for a trip round the bay but none really suitable for exploring the South Seas.