Lindisfarne, Saturday 1st July 2017

  Another day of nervous, on edge sailing. 23 miles to do, from Amble to Lindisfarne Started out quite peaceably, full sails and the wind behind and to starboard (a bit easterly), went along quite nicely with a few sunny spells. Pleasant coastal scenery including Dunstanburgh Castle. The wind started moving towards the west, so possible gybe time. I got rid of the main sail (up and down a couple of times) and was doing 4 knots with just the jib, perfectly good progress. I only had reefs one and two set up and would have found it difficult to engage reef 3, should really have set out with reefs 2 and 3 configured.
  The easterly got stronger and stronger but I was managing ok with just the jib on a reach but at the Farne Islands I had to turn left which put me on a beat into the weather and again it wasn't possible to sail into the wind with just the jib. So 6 miles from Lindisfarne I started the engine. The wind had picked up quite a chop, lots of white crests and the boat was slamming and splashing it's way forward. I was getting plastered in spray which was chilling me down and the whole thing felt scary. Everything was ok though, thank you Mr Honda for my reliable engine, if that had failed my options would have become more limited and sketchy.
  As I got close to Lindisfarne my phone with the nav app on got soaked with spray and settings changed and not amenable to being set back. I contemplated trying to find the haven I'm in (The Ouse on south side of island) from memory but was put off by rocks, it was 3.30pmish and low tide. So, if in doubt anchor; parked up in the lee of a sand dune, dried and configured my phone and successfully navigated into t'Ouse, all the while with a stiff breeze blowing. Struggled a bit to get my anchor to set amongst a  bunch of other boats (should probably have picked up a mooring buoy) but second time lucky and I waited till 8pm for the tide to come in so that I could get a more protected anchorage. Only worry now is whether the ground underneath me is not spiky as I will dry out, probably at about 2am.
  R & R day tomorrow.

Tech update

I've decided that my stove fire was due to user error. Having got the replacement pump unit I read the instructions and realised that I should not have been using an o-ring to seal it. I think my original pump used the o-ring So I'd assumed the previous pump unit (which was a replacement too) needed o-ring as well.