Hi, it’s Pippa and David (and don’t forget Opie the boat cat!) here on Sudana. It’s October 2024 and our first season of sailing in aid of Sea-Changers has come to an end with some chilly weather and big seas.
But while we wind down the boat and settle in for winter in North Shields, it’s a good opportunity to reflect on the sailing season behind us and look ahead to all the good things to come in the new year.
Where have we come from?
As some of you may know, David and I purchased our 28ft Thames Mirage sailing yacht in 2019. Our first ever floating home, and the first time either of us had set foot on a sailboat!
In 2023, we had four years of boating experience behind us and had travelled from Bristol to France and back to Emsworth (it’s near Portsmouth, for anyone less familiar with the area). This was the year we completed a major refit, and finally shook off the lines of a safe harbour to become proper digital nomads: trading safety and security for the excitement and unpredictability of a UK circumnavigation. Our first leg of the trip took us from Emsworth to Ipswich, where we settled for winter 2023 and re-evaluated our journey so far. The conclusion? We were having a great time, but something was missing.
So, in 2024, we got in touch with Sea-Changers and a new relationship was born.
What have we done this year?
Sailing season 2024 got off to a bit of a rocky start, with engine troubles meaning we were stuck in the River Deben for several weeks. But at least it gave us a chance to take stock and set up our charity pages and figure out what we wanted to do. After the Deben, it was a great adventure. This time, not just enjoying the sailing and new places, but also feeling like we were doing some good.
As per our commitment to our donors, we’ve diligently completed an hour each of litter picking in every port we’ve visited. And where we’ve not had a chance at a particular port, we’ve made up for it at the next one. As expected, some ports were better for charitable activities than others, but we’ve made an effort to do some good everywhere we go – and we almost always stop and chat to passers by to help spread the word and (hopefully) motivate others to help keep our planet a little nicer.
It wasn’t just litter picking and sailing that we signed up for, though. During our 2024 sailing season, we also wanted to meet up with some of the recipients of Sea-Changers grants. And we’ve managed to do just that! Sea-Changers charities were more than happy to meet us. Often for a coffee, but occasionally we were able to get a bit more stuck in.
Here are some of our highlights...
We met up with Michele and Rebecca from Lowestoft Time Bank in May 2024. With Michele’s two gorgeous dogs in hand, we set off for a walk along the “posh” beach as we got to know the women in a more causal setting. After our walk, we made our way to a dog-friendly café for a more detailed chat about Time Banking in general and their plans for the Sea-Changers grant.
In truth, we actually spent a lot of time chatting about government and how Lowestoft Time Bank helps get everyone on a level playing field. From help starting your new business to putting up shelves to legal advice to gardening to simply waiting in for a delivery, there seemed to be no limits to the good that could be achieved with this initiative. And, if I’m honest, we probably got a bit distracted from the marine conservation angle, as in-awe as we were with the Time Banking premise.
We did eventually chat about the Sea-Changers grant, though. Michele explained her idea of an ocean wellness program that would help bring people back to the sea and to remind them of all the mental health benefits that being by the water can offer. The workshops would involve a meditation, mindful walk, litter pick, and creative writing workshop – all with the double-aim of boosting the wellbeing of the attendees and reminding them that the oceans are worth protecting.
For those that haven’t heard of it, the Deep is a fantastic aquarium in Hull and is actually used as a marker when sailing up the river towards the marina.
We were invited to visit the aquarium as special guests and managed to make our way round in June 2024.
On arrival, we were treated to guest passes and lanyards that certainly made us feel like VIPs, as the team talked us through the “litter picking library” that their Sea-Changers grant had paid for.
In a nutshell, this library allows visitors to ‘check out’ litter pickers, bin bags, bin rings, and a sheet to record your findings. There are adult and child litter pickers available (the kid’s ones were definitely cooler) and they’d made it as easy and fun as possible to get involved in some conservation. We were told that it was still early in the season, but the litter picking kits were due to be a big hit in the summer, especially with families looking for alternative (free) activities to do with the kids in the summer holidays.
After learning about the litter picking, we were also treated to a guided tour of the aquarium, where we met a fantastic array of underwater creatures that we could have watched for hours. We were amazed to learn about the variation and beauty of the UK waterways – who knew we have our own coral reefs all the way over here?!
We also learned a bit more about what goes into running an aquarium, and all the hard work the Deep goes through to ensure that their animals are well cared for and that the aquarium itself is as environmentally friendly as possible. They also talked us through some of the other conservation work the Deep is involved in. Overall, we were very impressed.
Journey Blue Net is a fantastic charity dedicated to reducing fishing waste that usually ends up in landfill or as ghost equipment cluttering our oceans. We managed to meet up with the founder, Alistair, at a mini-festival in Whitby, where we were able to check out his wares and learn more about how end-of-life fishing nets and other plastics can be broken down into pellets and transformed into something new.
Since meeting Alistair, we’ve noticed his Journey Blue containers in a few ports during our UK circumnavigation, so we’re thrilled to see how far reaching and effective his mission is!
Although this meeting was at his stall at a festival, we have taken his number and hope to help him sort some of the “donations” soon – he promises it’s tiring, smelly, unpleasant work and we couldn’t be more excited.
Whitby Wildlife Sanctuary has to be my highlight of the trip.
On arrival, Alex gave us a brief tour of the site before introducing us to the sea birds and showing us the rescue pool their Sea-Changers grant had paid for. It was a few years old and getting a bit grubby – so it was just as well that they’d recently been awarded a second grant for a new filtration system! Giving them a chance to spruce up the pool itself with some new paint and state of the art systems. Just what these birds need!
We also got to witness feeding time for the gull chicks – a crazy moment that we felt a bit too close to!
After checking out and feeding the gulls, Alex showed us some of the Sanctuary’s smallest residents: including a tiny hedgehog, kittens, and baby birds that I can’t remember the names of. Adorable. Then, finally, we were put to work.
Kitted out with thick gloves, our mission was to pull out as much of the stinging nettle bushes as possible from one of the fox pens. What made this particularly exciting was the knowledge that there were at least two foxes in there with us – although these were the wilder ones, so they didn’t come out to say hello. I immediately took a bunch of stingers to the face, but it was worth it to help out with such an amazing place.
In the other pens were the ‘friendly’ foxes. Alex explained that this is caused by toxoplasmosis: a disease that affects foxes. While it is something they can survive, it causes brain damage which often results in the fox losing its sense of fear of humans. Which is generally deadly.
As of October 2024, Whitby Wildlife Sanctuary is home to 13 toxoplasmosis survivors and disabled foxes. And yes, it took a lot of restraint for me not to play with them like the gorgeous red dogs they look like and remember that these are still wild animals that need their space!
In July 2024, we met up with Stephen from Clean Planet UK. We had originally planned on taking the train to Middlesbrough to meet him at the site, but Stephen had some work in Hartlepool (where we were moored), so we met him for a coffee near the marina.
We loved learning about Stephen’s diving history, and how he’s put his experience and expertise to good use in founding Clean Planet. This charity undertakes some impressive, important, dangerous work removing ghost equipment from the oceans. Their speciality is lobster pots, which frequently get moved and lost in bad weather.
It was interesting hearing a different perspective on this from Stephen, who has a background in fishing himself. He explained that commercial fishers don’t abandon their lobster pots, as they usually cost in excess of £100, so they want to look after them and reuse them as many times as possible!
However, when they’re not brought in ahead of bad weather, they can get swept up in the big seas and often end up tangled together miles away from their usual resting place. And this is where Clean Planet comes in.
When lobster pots (or other pieces of fishing equipment) get lost, Stephen and his team will go out and find them, and attempt to haul them in. Often, this means diving on huge knots of lobster pots to try and cut them out and haul them aboard their small powerboat. This is obviously incredibly hard work (have you ever tried to lift a lobster pot – they’re heavy at the best of times, let alone when wet and tangled up!), but it can also be very dangerous. Cut the wrong line at the wrong moment, and you could end up being wrenched from the seabed. This can result in broken limbs, or even death if the diver has gone too deep and isn’t able to equalise on their way back to the surface.
Once ashore, Stephen and his team sorts through the ghost equipment, recycling what they can. Happily, we were able to put him in touch with Alistair from Journey Blue Net to see if they could work together in their recycling endeavours – and Stephen even suggested he has plans for recycling lobster pots: the one piece of ghost equipment Alistair has been struggling to deal with.
Because we were only due to be in Dunbar for a couple of nights, we didn’t think we’d have time to meet up with the Sea-Changers recipient in Dunbar. But, as we climbed the ladder onto the harbour wall on our last day for a litter pick, we got chatting to the harbour master. It turned out, it was the harbour itself that had benefitted from a grant, and the harbour master was well equipped to give us a quick run-through of what the grant was for and its benefits!
The primary purpose of the grant was to put in more bins around the harbour – always a worthy cause. It had also covered recycling bins for fishing equipment, both for commercial and casual anglers who enjoyed throwing their lines over the breakwater.
Where else have we been this year?
For those that are interested, here is a quick run down of where we’ve been this year (in order):
Ipswich, Waldringfield, Woodbridge, Waldringfield, Felixstowe, Southwold, Lowestoft, Sea-Palling, Blakeney Point, Wells-next-the-sea, Hull, Spurn Bight, Bridlington, Cayton Bay, Scarborough, Whitby, Paddy’s Hole, Hartlepool, Tyne River, Amble, Newcastle, North Shields, Holy Islands, Eyemouth, Edinburgh, Carlingnose Peir, Aberdour, Dunbar, Eyemouth, Berwick-Upon-Tweed, Holy Island, Amble, North Shields.
As you can see, it’s been a busy and exciting season for us.
What’s next?
We’re now settled in Royal Quays, North Shields and are excited for the benefits of being still for a few months. We’ve got a fun-filled holiday booked in December, so the next few months will be primarily focused on work and getting the boat ready to restart our UK circumnavigation in April.
There are a few charities in Newcastle that we didn’t get a chance to see on our last visit, so we’re hoping to meet up with them. We’re also due at least one more litter pick (although I suspect we’ll do a few more over the winter months to stay active and keep up our promise to do what we can for our planet), and we’ve already done two sessions with GoodGym in Newcastle (remembering that it was our time with GoodGym Ipswich that inspired us to start our charity journey in the first place).
If you want to follow our adventures, you can always check out our JustGiving page. This is the first place to see any charitable activities, and it’s (obviously) the best place if you want to pop us a donation and help keep us motivated!
You can also check us out on Instagram and Facebook (@writingandsailing for both). I’m still pretty behind with updating this, so it’s a great time to join us over there and follow our 2024 sailing adventures in more detail.
Wishing all of you a very happy winter 2024 and excited to see you for the next leg of our journey in the spring.
Happy Sailing!
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