Lowestoft Return

22nd May 2017
We had a very enjoyable weekend at Lowestoft, meeting up with some of our family and their friends on Saturday afternoon and evening. We had a reasonably early night as the 4 am start finally caught up with us. Sunday began with a cuppa and biscuits, followed by a nice hot shower in the marina’s clean and tidy facilities. We were then whisked off for a Premier Inn breakfast at the Foxburrow, which set us up for the day. We then spent a couple of pleasant hours at Hadyn and Julie’s home before being taken back to the marina for a siesta. Just before six, we were again picked up, this time by Jackie and Thomas and after a brief drive, we had supper at a very good Indian restaurant in Lowestoft. Food, drink and company were first class. This was followed by a drive into Great Yarmouth to see the many changes that had gone on since we were last there. We were then returned to the marina to have our last cuppa of the day and read our books before retiring for the night.

Monday

We both woke early, but had no trouble going back off to sleep. When we did get up, there was no rush to do anything in particular, so we both sat with our iPad or laptop pc, writing up our first posts to our blog for the season. We then visited the marina facilities and showered and dressed ready for our sail back to Ipswich. Chris radioed in to the bridge control asking if we could join the 2.30 pm departure when the bridge lifted. He was told that if we wished, we could join the 2.00 pm one as a commercial vessel was departing at that time. We thought that was a good idea and readied ourselves for the earlier departure. We left Lowestoft harbour at 2.00pm without any trouble and began our journey under engine as the wind speed was quite low, between 1.5 and 3 knots. Before long, we put up both sails and cut the engine, but we were not making good enough progress, so the engine was re-started. The motion of the boat was quite gentle, so Carole decided to make a start on cleaning off of the boat the large amount of bird crap that had been very kindly deposited on us during our short stay in Lowestoft marina. We have never been dumped on so badly before in the 12 years we have had her. Bl…y birds!! Chris was making a fine job of sailing the boat while Carole brought the boat back to a fit state to return to her berth. It took a good couple of hours but it was well worth it. After a bite to eat and a drink, the wind had picked up nicely and so the engine was again turned off and we began a beautiful sail along the Suffolk coast, the Speed Over Ground (SOG) recording around 9 knots.