Pickering (Day Trip from Whitby, by Old-Fashioned Train)

 

“Moors:” (1) ties up a boat; (2) North African people who invaded Spain in medieval times; (3) this wild and moody North Yorkshire countryside. We'd see all three uses of the word during the course of the summer, but right now I was focused on #3. Sherlock Holmes was one of my childhood heroes, and he had lots of stories and adventures in the moors; therefore I had to see this landscape while we were in the area. Earlier in our stay in Whitby our chief engineer told us that he had taken a day trip in an antique steam train through the moors (a national park) to a tiny town, and back again. We were happy to get a two-fer adventure. Off we went!

 In an extreme contrast to the modern high speed train we took from Edinburgh, this time we traveled by a steam locomotive that’s been in movies from Harry Potter to Indiana Jones for a day’s exploring.

The famous moors were a little less forbidding than they were in my childhood imagination, but still plenty powerful.

The town was tiny, hilly, and old.

And had the requisite castle ruins

Also, the best fish-and-chips we'd had so far (and since, it would turn out) was in this tiny hole-in-the-wall storefront and cost us only £6 each. (The beer we stopped for in a pub later cost more!) I have no idea what the doorway was all about. A takeoff on the bead curtains from the '60s? Chain mail? It made a fun sound as people walked through it.

 

Whitby (photo dump 2 of 2)

 

Continuing our theme of seeking out, and enjoying, the stories small towns tell about themselves. Not having a car definitely limited our range of exploration; the tradeoff being that we therefore studied the place we were at more deeply within the small radius of how far we could walk. But that, after all, is how the towns originally developed -- inland from the waterfront, and bound by walking distance.

As we wandered the streets, we came across this series of life-size statues depicting typical activities of the townspeople in historic times. There were supposedly almost a dozen of these "heritage walk" statues scattered through town; we didn't find them all but enjoyed the stories of the ones we did find. Fishermen and sea captains, a photographer, fishmonger, but my favourite was the "gansey knitter." These woolen sweaters, knitted on 4 needles and built with no seams, kept the men warm at sea. Each town, village, and sometimes even family, had their own unique pattern. (Sadly, if a man was lost at sea, the pattern, it was said, could help identify him.)  I don't know if that last is true, or if they'd find the body at all, but in any case the story has given me a new appreciation for the vintage Irish cardigan I inherited from my mom, with its pattern of cables, diamonds, and nubbles. 

This town also had a local museum with the most eclectic collections I've ever seen. Ship models, Roman glassware, coral, and steampunk joined an extensive collection of jet. That last I'd expected, of course since the area is famous for jet; there's some great info on it here on the English Heritage website. But a few of the others surprised me. 

Loads of wonderful ship models

At the Naval Academy in Annapolis is an extensive collection of bone models, carved by prisoners of war from the bones in their stew rations. I was delighted to find some here in Whitby as well.

And even a ship in a bottle!

Other dioramas in bottles as well.

Roman glassware, maybe makes sense in the region, 

...but I'm not sure about this pretty display of coral.

Fossils; there was actually quite an impressive rock collection at the museum.

Not sure I "got" why they had a separate exhibit about steampunk, but I appreciated that they didn't take themselves too seriously at this museum.

Lots of jet jewelry, but also this dollhouse sized furniture. The Victorians certainly loved their miniatures! There was even an elaborately carved jet chessboard.

But our most memorable antique artifacts from Whitby weren't found at the museum at all. Walking around town on our last day off, we passed an antique store with a large collection of nautical instruments in the window. Cheap! But they had closed about 1/2 hour before. And we had to work next day! And then we were leaving! 

We explained our dilemma to the chief of the watch for the next day and he agreed to let us take our 1-hour break early in the afternoon, and he'd cut us a little slack if we weren't back exactly on time. Promptly at 2:00 we racewalked to the shop. In literally less than 10 minutes we had introduced ourselves to the shopkeeper, selected every authentically old piece in the display window, piled it on the sales counter, and cut a bargain for the entire lot; then packed in into our backpacks, and racewalked back to the ship. We dropped our loaded backpacks off at our bunks, and reported back to duty on the deck just in time. Fastest, and probably most memorable, £200 we had ever spent.

This is just part of our haul. It was ultimately a big reason why, for only the second time in my entire life, I had to buy an extra suitcase to take my stuff back home after a trip.

Whitby (photo dump 1 of 2)

 

Although I couldn't explain the reason and there certainly wasn't a direct correlation, quirky Whitby reminded me of Boulder, CO. It had no mountains, no university, no atmospheric research center ... but it had a ruined abbey, lots of tourism, and a cult following for its association with the Dracula tale. Author Bram Stoker was reputedly inspired by Whitby Abbey during his stay in the town. Conveniently, it is/was a great source for sparkly anthracite coal that was made into (among other things) jet jewelry, and there were lots of shops in town playing to that goth vibe. When visitors in Newcastle asked us where we were headed next and we told them Whitby, they all smiled knowingly and told us we'd really enjoy the town. (Indeed, we did.) To me, all the towns we visited were new, and each had a unique character, but Whitby had "character" in a sense that travel brochures would understand. 

Our first day off had rain, which we characterized as an inconvenience, not a disaster, as we dressed in our foul-weather gear and headed off to explore. In fact, we turned some of the moodiness to our advantage in the photo department.

People have been using this headland for at least 3,000 years. St Hild had some sort of an abbey here in the 7th century; the site was an abbey in the 12th century and a church in the 13-15th century.

Another view of the ruined cathedral -- massive

                                       

The rain was perfectly moody for a visit to this old graveyard. It was fun to learn that our second officer was a fan of visiting old graveyards, as she told me when she saw this photo.

Looking back down the way we had come. The hill is titled "200 Steps" and there are periodic inserts along the climb in Roman numerals to tell you how far you'd come and how far you have yet to go, but my lying step counter only gave me 2 flights for this climb!

One of many lovely cobbled streets lined with shops and pubs. 

If you look closely at the street in the previous picture, you'll notice that the edges of the road are laid with 2 rows of different-coloured cobblestones. In this closeup you'll see that they're bright blue. Similar stones pave the cobbled streets of Old San Juan; those weird stones caused so much confusion when they were used as ballast on ships from Europe, then reused to pave the streets of Old San Juan in Puerto Rico and made the archaeologists wonder where the stones had come from as there was no local source. I wonder if these stones in Whitby come from a similar source? The rainy day really enhanced their colours.

Another cobbled street lined with two rows of blue stones

Part of those 200 steps up the hill to the cathedral

Another random street in Whitby (no cobbles this time)

The bars have interesting names easy to portray on a sign; perhaps from before the days when everyone could read? 

Beloved Galeon, that has carried us so many thousands of nautical miles to so many adventures, docked in the harbour on the River Esk.

After our wet sloppy long walk, we settled in a local pub for a beer and to watch the tide go out. Many of the boats here have twin keels so they can stand upright when the water leaves them ... high and dry (guess where that expression came from!) And they need it; tides range up to 6 meters/19 feet here.

Okay, just to prove we don't always hang out at pubs, here's a lovely coffee shop we frequented in town on our days off.

Admittedly after a while our European tour started to feel like "castles and cathedrals"

Farewell, Newcastle-Upon-Tyne and Hello, Whitby

 

As our "long-stay" (almost 2 weeks!) in Newcastle we were ready to move on. Actually, more than ready; it was a nice town but we all wanted to go sailing again. On our last morning we were greeted with a ridiculously long line of visitors waiting to come aboard: 

The first few hours were really busy!

And that busy day ended with a glorious double rainbow off our bow.

I finally got my own picture of the unique engineering of the arching opening bridge:

I took this photo from the quarterdeck! Old meets new, again.

The view upriver (looking towards town) from the balcony off the Zona Noble

It was just a short day sail to our next town; we left on the tide at 6 AM and arrived in the afternoon.

We motored past the working, industrial section of the river

Ruins of a 12-th century abbey on the hill gave the town "atmosphere"

You might have to look closely, but the river was packed with people to welcome us! We fired a few cannon shots

In the light air, we flew our biggest Spanish flag for a while. 

We sell a few passages where people can sail with us for a leg of the voyage. They act as trainee crew, not passengers -- they bunk with us, eat with us, and stand watches. We teach them to steer the ship and climb the rigging. We had a local "Jack Sparrow" join us on this leg. He had a great deal of fun as we came into town past the crowds, yelling to his mates ashore.

And once again, we got a mention on the local BBC News. The article included some great pictures of our arrival from land, worth following the link to check out.

Playing Pirate -- Another Free Life Lesson Along with Your Tour of the Galeon, No Extra Charge

 

Some of our visitors come motivated by a curiosity about history; admittedly some just come to take a few selfies and move on. And of course we get lots of people cosplaying pirates. I have two standing thoughts about those: one, that in a world where many peoples' jobs involve sitting in a gray-walled cubicle staring at a computer screen, the romance of a swashbuckling rebel on the high seas is a profound counterpoint; and two, that I turn it into a teaching moment -- we're not a pirate ship, we'd be a pirate target. We're hard to maneuver, lightly armed, travel a predictable route, and when you see this profile you know we're loaded with valuable goods. That's why we travel in convoys escorted by the navy, those faster, heavily armed vessels. And pirates wouldn't want our boat, it's too big and too slow and takes too much crew. They want something small and nimble that can attack and then tuck into the shallows where the bigger ships can't follow. 

Mostly, though, I profess delight when people dress up to visit us, though I'm quick to inwardly categorize people that seem to be dressed with an intent at historical accuracy versus those I call "polyester pirates" in caractureish costumes from the party store. 

I’m normally a bit skeptical about the “polyester pirates” — they normally come aboard only for the selfies, say “aaargh” a lot, and might be drunk. These two visitors that came on our second-to-last day in Newcastle were different: polite, respectful, knowledgeable and wanting to learn more. They had a number of tattoos including matching tattoos of an anchor with a trailing coil of chain at the base of the thumb on each of their hands. They told me that these were their wedding ink, and showed me that when they hold hands, the two together make a heart. (I can be so sentimental about that stuff!)

Preconceptions and generalizations can be useful; we should, after all, learn from our experiences. However these two “polyester pirates” reminded me not to let those preconceptions close us off to seeing what’s actually right in front of you: be ready, always, for reality to surprise and delight you. (Free life lessons along with your tour of El Galeon, no extra charge.)

The "polyester pirates" who I really enjoyed chatting with, and made me rethink my assumptions

On their own, each of them seems to have a simple anchor tattoo, but put together when they're holding hands, the ink tells its own story

And speaking of playing pirate -- we had a "Jack Sparrow" lookalike visit us in every single port! I'd have a running bet, will we have one here? And then in the next port I'd double-or-nothing. I kept winning, and accumulated an entire album of photographic proof in my phone. Here are just a few: 

The "Jack Sparrow" from Poole

The "Jack Sparrow" from Yarmouth

The "Jack Sparrow" from Newcastle

The "Jack Sparrow" from Plymouth, one of the times I was also dressed pirate instead of my crew jacket

Another selfie with "Jack Sparrow"

The "Jack Sparrow" from the festival at Delfzijl