As seaside towns, Mablethorpe, Sutton on Sea and Chapel St Leonards have thousands of visitors throughout the year, with many activities along the beach. But what is happening out to sea? Gordon Leesley from Coastwatch Mablethorpe explains the boats and features we can see from the shore.

During the day we see shipping on the horizon around seven miles out to sea, these are a variety of vessels, mainly the high speed crafts supplying and transporting maintenance workers to the wind farm at Skegness and Triton wind farms. Also, cargo ships heading into and out of the Humber.

At night we see lots of lights on the horizon, both moving and static. If you look out just north and east of Mablethorpe you might see the ‘Protector’ beacon, it’s a high red structure with a flashing red light every 2.5 seconds. It is used by the shipping and military. The RAF Donna Nook bombing range is to the north of the area marked by yellow buoys, shipping is not allowed in that area, if they request a passage through which does reduce the distance to Grimsby they radio the Donna Nook control and are sometimes allowed through if the range is not in use.

At night we can see three wind farms lit up at Skegness, Triton and one outside the Humber.

Humber ferries come out of Hull heading south and east not visible for very long, vessels mostly seen are the cargo ships coming from the south into the Humber, being a tidal river they often have to anchor and wait for orders from the VTS (Vehicle Traffic System) for their allotted time slot to access the Humber.