You’re too close to that wind farm

We arrived at our start point before the wind so while we waited we got to enjoy the wildlife show happening all around us. You could see as puffins flew back to their nests, mouths full of fish sticking out on either side. Seals popped up to say hello, with their large exhale of air creating arched ripples in the flat water in front of their nostrils. And four harbour porpoises played just out of camera shot.

With a few stop/start moments the wind did fill in. It wasn’t as bad as our last kiting day, but we did hit two or three lulls where both kites fell out the sky and Jeremy had to be called out for rescue. One of these times a seal popped up not more than 2feet from me, saw me looking at him and was so spooked dove back down.

Outside Blyth we passed a wind farm, still under construction. Learning from our last experience at the Beatrice wind farm when the patrol boat called Mentor to ask what we were doing and to ensure we remained outside of the marked zone, we gave this one what we thought was a wide berth. Obviously not wide enough. Mentor received a call from Humber coastguard asking exactly where we were and for more details on the colours of our kites. In the morning Joe had already said they were both green, but he was asked to elaborate, so mentioned they had red and white tips with a black outline (our two 15m PeterLynn Swells). There were cardinal marks indicating the extremities of the construction zone, and we were far enough out we had to squint to find them. But in fairness to the patrol boat, we must have been an odd site, two kitesurfers far out to sea with no obvious support (at this point Mentor was about 1mile behind us). On hearing the coastguard’s call, we headed back so we were closer. Not sure if this helped relieve their concerns as it meant we passed by the patrol boat two more times, but at least it highlighted we were listening and aware we needed to stay clear.

The day carried on somewhat uneventfully until we got in front of a large tanker moored outside Tynemouth. Just as we were passing in front of it Stew’s kite bent in half then sprung back again, just like how a jelly fish does when it propels itself forwards. Kites are not supposed to do this. They’re supposed to remain rigid in their semi-circle “n” shape while in the sky. A few minutes later it did it again, this time loosing all the power and crashing to the ground. Again, right in front of the tanker. Somehow Stew managed to coax it out the water and back in the sky, but it had obviously lost air and wasn’t functioning as normal. Stew just about managed to keep it in the sky as we gradually limped closer to Mentor where Jeremy re-pumped it up, and it remained fully inflated for the rest of the day. This was the first time this had happened on this trip, so I assume we’d not done the nozzle up well enough when we’d set off.

It was a race against the clock to catch the tide on the way into Hartlepool, we did a quick pack-down and a speedy motor in to ensure we had enough water to catch the last lock. If we’d missed it we’d have had to wait outside for another two hours until 21:30, and we’d arranged to meet up with some friends for dinner. We just made it in and were treated to Thai looking out over the marina. A nice way of celebrating our 99th day of the trip.

Blyth – Making Renewable Energy History

The seaside town of Blyth took a giant leap into renewables in 2000 with the construction of the UK’s first two offshore wind turbines. At 2MW each they were at the time the most powerful offshore wind turbines in the world. Today, offshore turbines are four times more powerful, resulting in the decomission of the original two structures in April of 2019. They have been replaced by 5 new turbines, each producing 8.3 megawatts of power, enough to serve 36,000 homes. Blyth is home to the National Renewable Energy Centre, and continues to make advances in this field.

Map of today’s route

Map Key: Stew (Red), Islay (White) and Mentor (Blue)

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