Lovely Lowestoft

We really didn't expect anything good from Lowestoft, having only ever visited by land before, but we had a lovely gentle sail there from Southwold and a good berth in the somewhat bouncy Royal Norfolk & Suffolk Yacht Club marina, which has a very nice clubhouse and facilities including a fairly accessible shower - a pity it's right in the middle of the gents' facilities, but as I gave Sam a shower at lunchtime on a Friday things were pretty quiet. We walked along the promenade anjoying the views and sunshine and generally being more impressed with Lowestoft than we expected - it was clean and well cared for and even the shops were better than I thought.

After we arrived on Thursday Alex and David caught the slow train from the station, just five minutes away, to get back to their car at SYH via Ipswich. I decided that my tooth was gradually improving enough that I didn't need to rush home to see my dentist again.

One problem was that one of our two halyard winches - the one we use to raise the mainsail and also get Sam on and off the boat - was only working in one direction and I couldn't even work out how to remove the cover. Barient apparently supplied them with a patent tool, long since disappeared. Fortunately Guy was able to drive up after work (he lives only 10 miles away) and take a look. He stripped down dozens, nay hundreds, of winches at Sailing Holidays, and was able to open the winch by jamming it with the halyard on the primary (jibsheet) winch, then open it all up. The problem was a tiny broken spring right at the base. Sam had given me a hard time for not servicing the winches properly, but in fact they looked pretty good inside with no signs of corrosion. After considerable cogitation we managed to swap over the pawls and springs from the other winch, so at least the winch we use most is working ok.

The rest of the day was taken up with a shop at Asda which is 10 minutes' walk away, and generally trying to prepare for sea. The forecast was far from brilliant, with strong southerlies on the Friday and Saturday adding to the bounce in the marina. I decided, with considerable misgivings, that the best option would be a dawn departure on Sunday with a westerly wind dead astern. The forecast was F4-5, occasionally 6. Sea state slight to moderate. I don't like moderate much (it's not very moderate in a 10m yacht) but it looked like the least worst choice.

On Saturday morning I thought I might try a very gentle run - the first for two weeks as my tooth had been so painful. I was amazed to see so many runners around, then realised I was running through the middle of preparations for the Lowestoft Park Run. I wasn't up to 5km so I ran off to Asda to get croissants and a Saturday Guardian.

Ben and Anne arrived at 2pm on the Saturday. They were delighted to hear that they wouldn't be sailing until the next day, and as they had plenty of time to explore Lowestoft, they used it by going to sleep for the rest of the afternoon.

The RN&SYC seen from the promenade