Day 72, part 2 Sat 21 May: From Grimsby, just a short dash to Cleethorpes, the first of three Lincolnshire resorts. Thanks Kelly, ILB Crew for turning out to meet me. As the frequency of seaside resorts per mile of coastline continues to increase, so too does the number of ILB Stations. The busy workhorse of the RNLI fleet, the D class Inshore Rescue Boat might not be the most glamorous compared to some of it’s bigger, faster sister boats, but this is the ideal quick response boat, needed so often for short range dashes along the shore line, into tricky little coves and up river estuaries.
We humans have evolved into a pretty advanced species, developing sophisticated tools and machines (the greatest of them all is, of course the bicycle, but that’s besides the point). We can build vast bridges and tunnel beneath the sea. We have reached the moon and beyond. We have developed technology that allows us to send and share videos of a kitten being sweet with a ball of string to a thousand social media friends in an instant.
So why is it that, when enjoying any part of our many thousands of miles of amazing coast line, we can be so daft? It’s a long time since we were amphibians and I don’t see us evolving into gravity defying, webfooted, giant headed pond skaters any time soon. Very few of us have the climbing agility of a mountain goat combined with the swimming and diving ability of a dolphin. So the next time one of us drifts out to sea on a slowly deflating tractor inner tube, or becomes stranded, cut off by the tide beneath a cliff face or on a sand bank, let’s hear it for the likes of Kelly and crew mates at Cleethorpes, Mablethorpe or whichever Inshore Lifeboat Straiton with a D-Class ILB is nearest. No matter how foolish or unlucky we might be, these are the crews who will, at the bleep of an RNLI pager, drop whatever they’re doing, dash down to their Lifeboat and try to rescue us.
Meanwhile, my nose, soon to be registered with the Meteorological Office as an official weather vane, is pointing South. Yes, that’s where the wind is coming from today. With an 89% accuracy record whilst cycling around the West, North and now most of the East Coast of mainland Britain, my nose is more accurate than the BBC Weather Forecast.
Straight to my Skegness guest house for B&B, just 400 yards from the Lifeboat Station, perfect for the planned early morning visit tomorrow.
rnli coastal cycle ride 