Volty towers
Drip… Drip... Drip... I arise in panic on Saturday morning, to the very much unwelcome leaking of a pipe. Fantastic. I glimpse a reflection of myself, of someone up way too early for all the wrong reasons! And this on the day I’m due to board a boat. A water worldly weekend awaits…
Moments later, you find me standing on a slightly dampened carpet. With the water supply turned off; the leaking pipe silenced and a plumber en route, I refocus attention to a day that has been in planning since Christmas. Today is on the mothership, ever since she wrapped up a few quid in a coffee pot for a day out!
Sail of the century!
For me, it was a no-brainer what we’d use the coffee cash for…
Living in Brighton, and a bit of a runner – I always find myself on the seafront. The hustle and bustle of the arches, the sea-air; and those endless views of the coastline are something else. However, these days, if you squint a bit harder you’ll notice something on the horizon… 116 somethings in fact!
Eight miles off the Brighton seafront lives the Rampion Offshore Wind Farm. It’s been there since November 2017 generating clean, green, electricity for the masses. If you didn’t know they were there, you can easily miss them, but at night they seem to blink in unison - like a discreet orchestra of light.
Not going unnoticed, PLUS the fact I used to work for an energy company, PLUS that key wind farm scene in Tenet, meant my seeds of intrigue had been well and truly planted!
With the flowers of curiosity in bloom; my nerd mode had been fully activated. I decided to do a bit of investigating, and found a guy with a boat specialising in fishing trips, and low and behold, wind farm charters. After a few emails back and forth, we agreed a date to set sail… weather permitting!
Sea senors
A few months later, and the big day had finally arrived. The weather gods had come good too… it was the hottest day of the year! With our squad of eight assembled for the adventure, we met at the Brighton Marina, accompanied by about thirty degrees; as the sun sparkled brightly off the water, like a disco ball blanketing the sea!
Our skipper for the trip, welcomed us onboard. A larger-than-life character, with a beard as white as ice-cream! Imagine Captain Birdseye, but feistier… he’d happily launch a fish finger at your head if you stood out of line! A fuse as short as Basil Fawlty’s, only we were on a 40-foot catamaran – not a hotel in Torquay!
Carrier bags chinked as the last of our group boarded! Skipper explained the lifejackets, and with his checklist complete; we pulled away from the marina, as a bottle of champers popped in celebration! With glasses filled, our exclusive charter of eight had somehow grown by four, with a couple of stowaways, and a camera crew filming for a TV station… maybe they’d be walking the plank later, broadcast live?
I looked back as the marina got smaller and smaller. The boat churned the water like blue butter, as we cut through the sea. We whizzed past another boat fishing, as our waves shook their vessel. We wave, and I think they wave back, but with their fists? Weird!
Captain’s log
Our destination didn’t seem be getting any nearer? The turbines seemed no taller than a centimetre, they were that far away! I noticed a seagull in the sky, that I could have sworn was following us, before topping up my bubbles… then like magic, the real size of the turbines became clear, as we fell within one’s shadow. Sh*t was about to get real!
The engine was cut as we drifted towards the first of the turbines. It honestly felt like a scene out of a sci-fi film, with our team of explorers landing on this never-before-seen planet. Everyone was in sheer awe of this gentle giant they’d never seen so close. How could something this ginormous be so silent? The fact the sea was so still made it all the more eerie! ‘We come in peace,’ I thought to myself.
Within the tranquillity, our captain could be heard cackling over the tannoy, as he exercised some of his turbine trivia:
‘Each turbine is 140m tall,’ That’s basically the length of a football pitch… and some!
‘Their blades measure are 55m long,’ Just a few meters longer than Nelson’s column!
‘The turbines combined generate enough energy to supply 350,000 homes a year!’
Minds blown! It seemed crazy all that energy could be generated from somewhere as serene as this. The water seemed like glass it was that motionless! As we meandered past the turbines, we approached the heart of the wind farm: the substation.
Give us a wave
This substation was equally impressive - all 3,000 tonnes of it! It looked like a basecamp on yellow stilts. It was way wider, and felt less alien, more human; probably as it had about five little fishing boats all docked below. I’m assuming the fish gravitated towards the pillars? That or the boats were all deep-sea Deliveroo’s. Man’s gotta eat!
A high-vis jacket caught my attention from the heavens, as one of the wind farm’s employees looked down waving! ‘Skip’ explained this was where all the electricity generated by the turbines was transformed, and pumped to an onshore substation, before being powered up and added to the national grid for us all to use! Science lesson complete, it was time to depart the £1bn site.
We topped our flutes up one last time, passing Brighton’s toytown like seafront; its beach goer’s merely flecks and dots. Everyone gleamed excitedly, cosmically conversing, Rampion-reminiscing over the past 90 minute’s marine like mission to Mars, now complete!
WriteHereWriteNow is my side adventure, diving into the world of freelance writing. Personal blog aside, I’m available for all types of content requirements. Feel free to get in touch!