I Must Down to the Seas Again ....

...to the lonely sea and the sky... (John Masefield) I've been pining for the sea for quite a few weeks now - growing up in land locked Leeds I never realised how wonderful living by the sea would be - Then we moved to Northumberland - and lived near the sea- it was a liberating feeling of spaciousness - sometimes of desolation and always of tranquility and peace. I have found walking on the beach to be one of life's greatest pleasures and when we moved back in land I found I missed it more than I ever could of imagined...

We took a van trip to South Gare Redcar - there were no tall ships just huger tankers - it was a wee bit grey for a July day but we managed to miss the rain and had a lovely uninterrupted walk on the beach listening to the gulls screech and the waves make chiming sounds as they rushed into the sands. It was low tide and there were a few people about - not many but that's hardly surprising as it's not a scenic beach - its interesting with the vast desolate expanse of wet sand dominated by the slowly decaying urban sprawl of the old steel works - there is still something quite magnificent about the slow rust rotting the now totally defunct buildings in to weird and wonderful shapes and colours - I remember the first time I went to south Gare a very windy blustery day and the furnaces were lit and you could hear and smell the fires and from the right place see the glow - days long gone now but it left me with a sense of magic - that transformation of metal -now transforming in a totally different way....

Now out to sea there is a shiny new wind farm - todays answer to John Masefield's tall ships! white gleaming giants todays answer to technology - a complete contrast to the steel work looming in the background.

There were was one huge disappointment though and something that will probably put me off revisisting - piles of bags of dog waste just left for the dog waste fairies to pick up - surely leaving your dog waste in a bag is worse than just leaving it out - and to be honest there didn't seem to be many dog waste fairies about so it was pretty grim!!!

This litter and dog waste issue is becoming more apparent - we have always advocated wild camping and most importantly a leave no trace policy - we have often taken home much more litter than we ever arrived with - sadly it's like everything else, the small minority spoil things for the responsible majority and dogs will be banned from beaches - wild campers are being hounded out of quiet locations and there is still litter and dog mess in abundance because the people that do that kind of thing just don't care!!! Personally I would like to see a bigger effort made on fines for littering and the whole issue taken seriously! an Impossible situation to police but allegedly police are out in full force moving wild campers on so may be they can tackle dog fouling at the same time!

Rant over - and its a waste of effort really as I'm as always on social media preaching to the converted!! be vigilant I say - but how else to resolve this problem I have no idea!!!

Alesund

Our final destination stop was Alesund. This is a very pretty town in southern Norway built on a peninsula. All the houses are painted pretty colours and a lot of the architecture is all very Art Nouveau based. This is because the town itself was completely burnt to the ground In 1904 by a fire for which they never found the original cause. The whole town had to be rebuilt and this became a huge National Effort and a lot of prominent and up and coming architects flocked to the town to stick there 20 pence in. Consequently the town is very heavily Art Nouveau which was very fashionable at the time. There is this wonderful Museum just off the harbour which is a very beautiful Art Nouveau house. It has amazing panelling, doors, wallpaper, and it's all furnished with beautiful art Nouveau Furniture. It also house a collection of of enameled Art Nouveau Trinkets,boxes, spoons, jewellery, very very beautiful. There is an interesting collection of old books and paintings a...

verdant lushness

Its a never ending island hop... today we hopped of the boat at Kingstown, on the island St. Vincents and Grenadine. Once through the usual port duty free - cheap booze and diamonds to go milarkey we were straight into the town... crazy noisy smelly chaos... refreshingly no tat shops for tourists, just local markets and street traders all vying for local sales. Music blasting from everywhere, cars (very battered and often very pimped) all over the roads - parked in the middle of the street, loading, unloading, chatting seemingly oblivious to the total traffic jam caused behind them... We walked through this mayhem - the temperatures were rising probably about 30 degrees - tourists evident by trying to walk on the shady side of the street - even when we turned off the main drag and there were less people it was still like carnival time with music blasting everywhere. Its very atmospheric and mostly promotes a good vibe although I have heard '3 little birds' everywhich way a...

Almost last chapter... In which our Go Stargazing team watch Astonishing Aurora Borealis seen from the deck of the Astonishing Borealis!!!

The weather brightened considerably and the snowy peaks lining our sail down the fjiords looked glorious and sparkly in the sunshine against a (mainly) blue sky back drop. More awesome scenary.... the Go Stargazing team wrapt up their lectures ... only searching for the illusive Northern Lights remained. The tension from the night before dissolved in the sunshine the forecast for Aurora borealis was looking fairly positive - it was the captains farewell cocktsil party so everyone had their gladrags on.. We ate dinner and sky remained clear so we headed back to our room and donned as many layers as we could move in and proceeded to deck 10 in anticipation of stars and northern lights..... it did not dissappiont - just we got there as the bridge announced that the lights could be seen on the starboard side of the ship. It was stunning. Slowly the intensity built. The auroral green became brighter and bigger areas appe...

Planet Ruby Starrs

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