Hello and welcome to today's independent travel podcast with me, Simon Calder. It's Friday the 22nd, August, which means that a lot of people are preparing to head for the seaside.

Last bank holiday weekend until Christmas in England, Wales and Northern Ireland at least.

Good place to go is Runwick Bay in North Yorkshire,

not just because it is a beautiful location on the coast, but because you will be well looked after

if you take to the water. I've been talking to Andrew Smith, who has a wonderful home overlooking at the bay, and is also heavily involved in the Runzig Bay with Scoot.

Thank you, Simon. Yes, I've been involved in it since I was a child really, growing up in the village.

Started when I was about 15 or 16. Back then they ran cadets,

and I joined as a cadet and were trained quite young. I left the village and went to uni,

I went to London, and then had a family, and I only really came back about 15 years ago when I

bought a house here. So there was a big spell while I haven't been involved. But yes, it's been

part of my life

for a long time. Yeah, and enough of us, imagine that the Royal National Lifeboat Institution,

the Ark in Ill-I, it runs all the lifeboats up and down the coast, trying to keep us safe,

but that's far from correct. They aren't allowed to do an amazing job, and they cover, you know, vast parts of the coast.

But there are also a lot of independent lifeboats.

Most of them are run by small charities, local charities.

Generally speaking, struggling to balance the books to run, you know, a service of one kind or another.

Some of them actually run big, deeper sea boats.

Our boat is, you know, very small, just inshore D-class equivalent sort of small boat.

And the idea is that once the RLMI moved their lifeboat away from Brunswick Bay,

it was felt in the village we still need to have some kind of rescue service.

That's right. It would have been about 35, 40 years ago that they used to have a large lifeboat

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