Whitby is a splendid place
We spent three night sa nd two days there
the place really milks the Captain Cook connection - and of course the Dracula side of its history as well. In case you did not know Bram Stoker set part of the Dracula story there.
Jill went home on Tuesday morning so I was back alone on the boat. The bridge out of the harbour only open two hours each side if high tide so the first chance to escape top sea was 1500 hours
I went around the museum - which is a wonderful place. 85,000 exhibits as eclectic as the Pitt Rivers in Oxford. Lots of things brought back to Whitby by cook, a section about whaling and a magnificent exhibit about bizarre models in bottles.
£5 well spent
stone anchors
spitfire in a lightbulb
fungus cakes - please touch says the sign
rafia armoured trousers
then there is the severed hand, the matchstick Endeavour and the throwing sticks
incidentally the crows nest was invented by a Whitby resident.
Excellent, hope to visit Whitby one day
Whitby kippers, delicious. Served hot with a sprinkling of Whitby jet, ground, of course. Frank Sutcliff’s gallery has a wonderful collection of seaside and boaty photos on show and for sale.
Cobles are among the best sea keeping boats size for size ever built, they clearly show their Scandinavian roots. Found along the NE coast from Scotland down to the Humber.
Whitby is well known for its Back to Nature Festival, during which kippers are reshaped by filling them out into a more rounded shape, heads are put on, and they are taught to swim in the harbour. Just west of the restored old bridge. Those that master the art of swimming will be released in the North Sea. There they will swim about under the name of herrings. This pageant, annually held on February 30th, always attracts large numbers of visitors from as far afield as Transsylvania. The tradition is thought to date back to the time of St Hilda, who invented Easter in 1066 while travelling on the North Yorkshire Moors Railways special Santa Express. After she had undergone an emergency operation to remove an arrow from her eye. Her right eye. After this she could never see depth of field any more and was inclined to move in circles. She kept turning left, in fact. Poor lass.
Not widely known is the fact that the same arrow was later used to shoot down the plane in which Hess flew to Scotland to promote German produce, using the slogan Vorsprung durch Technik, which loosely translates as Ve Krauts May Be Arrogant But Ve Know How To Build Audis.
I must be deviating a little from the subject. Whatever that was.