I went along to Dunbar Harbour to watch and take photos of the craning-in i.e. when the yachts/dinghies are transferred from the harbourside into the harbour. I did take some photos but time was restricted and there was a problem with the mast of one of the yachts, which was severely delaying the lifting of that vessel. I was more successful in 2021 at the same event and that post included:
It was a beautifully sunny day in Dunbar with a big Australian sky, albeit without the heat. The crane is hired by Dunbar Sailing Club and (photo below) it dwarfs everything else in the harbour. The photo shows the harbourside as one of the yachts goes below the wall and into the water. The yacht joins the fishing boats on its right and you can see the many creels which line the side of the harbour. On the hill above the harbour you can see Dunbar Leisure Centre which houses the swimming pool as well as an extensive gym and a large hall for fitness classes. Before this building could be started, there were extensive archaeological diggings (good photos) on the site. These revealed that there had been a settlement here since the Iron Age and that a fortress – perhaps mainly wooden – was here in the 9th century.
The photo below shows one of the yachts – also seen in the video to follow – nestling into the water and its crane ropes being released. The creels on the left are fairly new, retaining their blue colour and creels are used every day by a number of small fishing boats in the harbour which seek to catch crabs and lobsters in the creels. Above the creels in Dunbar Lifeboat Station (good photos) which holds the RNLI offices and shop. The lifeboat itself is an irregular visitor to the harbour as it is moored at Torness Power Station in permanent deep water. The harbour is tidal and if you look at the harbour walls just below the castle on the right of the photo, you can see the tidemark
We returned to the harbour in the afternoon and walked around the far side to The Gripps (blog post with photos and video) and when we returned, the bridge separating the harbour from Lamer Island (history) had been raised. Not all of the yachts sit on the harbourside during the winter months and some are moored in the Old Harbour. The video below shows one of the yachts gliding serenely and gracefully under the bridge to its new summer home. You will see that the tide has now come in and the fishing boats in the harbour are much higher in the water.
When I checked on this year’s event, I was told that 30 minutes after my visit, the yacht had still not been lifted. Eventually, in late afternoon, all the boats had been dropped gently into the harbour.
Another year and another set of sparklingly colourful, aesthetically pleasing, elegant and graceful tulips in our garden. The RHS tell us that Tulips provide a splash of spring colour in dazzling shades. Different flower forms add to this variety, with lily-, fringed-, parrot- and peony-flowered forms. The photo below is a good example of dazzling shades with pink, red and yellow/red colours in a large pot on our decking. There are also a couple of late daffodils to be seen in the pot. Unlike last year, when we had about 6 weeks of easterly winds which did not affect the tulips, this year’s westerlies have blown the tulip heads frantically about and some have been blown over. This pot is at the side of our conservatory window and is a delight to look at from inside as well as outside. I remember planting these tulip bulbs on a cold, grey day in late autumn – this is my reward.
I brought a few of the tulips which had been blown over when the buds were still tight, and put them on the kitchen windowsill. The photo below shows one of these tulips. I have recently been watching the BBC TV programme Pompeii: The New Dig which featured a recent archaeological investigation of a yet unexplored part of the town. In the 3 programmes the archaeologists discovered a commercial bakery and laundry, most likely owned by the same person, whose house was highly decorated with wall paintings and snake sculptures. There was also an emphasis on the sheer size of Vesuvius, the dramatic eruptions and the fiery inside of the volcano. One of the images reminded me of the inside of the tulip in the photo, with with the flaming red on the outside, the intense, molten yellow inside and the explosive, tarantula-like anthers. On entering the kitchen, this blast of colour immediately took my eye.
Tulips have also featured in the arts, with the 1950s song Tulips from Amsterdam (Youtube video) by Max Bygraves very popular at the time. In literature, the doom-laden (and doomed) Sylvia Plath hated the tulips brought to her hospital room. In the poem Tulips, she writes The tulips are too excitable/ … The tulips are too red in the first place, they hurt me/ … they weigh me down, Upsetting me with their sudden tongues and their color/ A dozen red lead sinkers round my neck. Fortunately, Plath’s opinion would have been and would now, be shared a very small minority of people like myself, who delight in these flowers. A E Stalling is more cheerful in the poem also entitled Tulips, writing that The tulips make me want to paint,/ Something about the way they drop/ Their petals on the tabletop/ And do not wilt so much as faint.
If you want to see masses of beautifully coloured tulips, the RHS has several videos of tulips at their Wisley centre and this is one of them.
There are still a few remaining tulips to admire in my garden in pots, so they continue to give us pleasure, with shapely flowerheads of different colours and, when the sun is out, dramatic insides to attract pollinators.
Tags: A E Stalling, aesthetically pleasing, anthers, archaeology, craning-in day, creels, dunbar harbour, Dunbar Lifeboat Station, Dunbar Sailing Club, graceful, Lamer Island, Pompeii: The New Dig, RHS, Sylvia Plath, The Gripps, tulips, Tulips poem, volcanic, Wisley, youtube video
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