The half-mile paddle-out….

… and the month-long storm that caused it.

Sorry its been so long. Winter has been a miserable affair this year.

I got back from a weeks snowboarding in Slovakia last week. It was about -27 at its coldest over there in the dumping fresh snow.

Yet when i landed back in Edinburgh I already knew it was colder, dark and more miserable here. We had heard on the saturday of the ship that ran aground at the Farnes.

We followed the updates and gossip on FaceTube and also kept an eye on the weather forecast. It was bleak. – Cold. Hovering just above freezing, with gales from the East. This meant big seas.

That forecast was 10 days ago, and the weather front arrived on the coast before we did. Its also looking to stay the same, for another two weeks, right through Easter weekend.

So there have been some proper big days on the sea, and plenty of casualties along with it. Seals, both adult and pups have been washing up all over the beaches. Along with a wide assortment of bird; Terns, Gulls, Guillemots, Razors and even Puffins, dozens of them.  Its quite sad.

And what of the MV Danio ? the 80m freight vessel that managed to ‘miss’ the mighty Longstone lighthouse and park herself on the rocks a mere 30m away ?
Well the Danio is still there, waiting for the right tide to take her off the rock. Rumor is that they are going to move her tomorrow (26th March). A tug from Leith is moored just North of the Farnes waiting for the weather to break. I snapped a quick picture of the rope that has been shipped in to help move the 2500 tonne vesel. £20,000 worth of 6-inch thick rope….

And in the last 12 days, with seas as big as have been seen for a while, one boat has been the only one leaving the harbour at Seahouses. Stand Sure, skippered by Jonathan Dawson has been assisting the salvage team, moving people and equipment between the islands and the harbour in 6m seas… not a job for the faint hearted !

Lets hope they get her of the rocks in the next few days, nothing too bad can really happen, but it will be a mighty mess if she wont float off and sail away…

Another season over…

This time last year we were knee-deep in snow. Well, you were, I managed to make it out of the country on the last flight from Newcastle before they shut the airport due to the weather.

And look at it now – its like Spring – blue skies, sunshine, double figure temperatures… and since im still here, I have been making the most of it with some long walks along the coast.

All these shots are taken with my iPhone, and far from being high-grade, yet still capture the coast in its glorious autumn light… :)

Im off to Indonesia for a month… more at Christmas…

Icons of the area…

September. That time of year when normality returns once more and village life in Beadnell, Seahouses and Bamburgh returns to a mellower pace.

The weather is still pretty fantastic, blue skies, sunshine and warm water. The road are getting quieter…  you can feel Autumn approaching.

I love September. I revel in it.

As the summer passed, I thought about what defined this area we live in.. not easy to do. Not as an answer to that, but as a visual exploration, I collected these images, which hopefully begin to paint the picture.

Coxons Ice-cream

The Longstone Lighthouse on the Farne Islands

Fish and Chips from any of the various chippy's

Bamburgh Castle

Lobster Pots - working or decorative

Billy Shiel boat trips to the Farne Islands

Of course there are many other things I could have included, and everyone has their own vision of what this special piece of coast means to them, but you have to draw the line somewhere… We could talk about Kippers, Grace Darling, Dunstanburgh Castle, Beadnell Harbour, Golden Beaches… but these are the ones that work most visually – and they work for me.