A Cold Wind

I left the house at 6am, at 6.01am I realised that I had locked myself out and so had to wake my house mate who was already overtired and overworked and now underwhelmed, by my mistake.



I arrived in Hull at around 9.30am after a steady drive north trying to conserve petrol. I popped into B&Q picked up some batteries and gaffa tape then grabbed a coffee, jumped back in the car and finished the journey to the end of the Humber estuary and Spurn Point.



I could not see Andrew Gibsons (YWT Warden) car so headed along the temporary road to the end of the point for a quick reconnaissance. There has been a lot of work done since I was here last (one year ago). New gates, speed ramps and posts as well as the lighthouse having had new doors and windows.



I headed back down the point and bumped into Andrew coming the other way. After a brief chat (He was off to the light house to open up for a film shoot for a music video) I headed to the farm on whose land the mirror is positioned. I had a brief chat with the farmer and then headed over to the mirror itself. It doesn't do to upset the locals..













Up close and personal the mirror was huge and rather impressive. I quickly rigged up the equipment and began recording, but as is so often the case hear at Spurn, the weather changed, the wind picked up and the sun disappeared for the rest of the day. I had feared a strong wind, and that this might play hell with my cheep mic cover, it did.



I recorded for around an hour and got little or no noticeable readings from the mirror despite several different experiments with the positioning, hight and angle of the mic. I did pick up a passing helicopter and some bird song but no zeppelins today.

I went to the B&B at Westemere farm and signed in, unloaded, downloaded and then recharged myself and the lap top while the rain come down and the wind picked up. I woke at four to find the the sun had almost returned. I got in the car and headed for the end of the point to do some recordings in the empty and abandoned military buildings.



The useful thing about Spurn is that theres only one road, so if you need to find some one its pretty straight forward, and so I bumped into Andrew again. Andrew gave me the key to the lighthouse and explained he'd be away tomorrow. We agreed to catch up on my next visit in two weeks.



As with the morning the wind played hell with the sound quality, I did however find one very sheltered location and managed to pick up the engines of a pilot speed boat motoring out to sea to deposit another pilot onto an incoming vessel. After couple of hours I made my way back to the car, off the point and into the pub, for dinner.