Monday 7th September Ref: 2020/6
After completing the course planning and preparation of Lady Martina, much of which had been undertaken the night before, I checked with the harbourmaster and we agreed that it would be okay for us to leave about 3 PM local time, which was nearly an hour after high water. By this time the levels had not dropped very much and we would be able to carry the ebb tide back along the Suffolk coast to Lowestoft. From our moorings, we could still see the P&O cruise ship Arcadia anchored offshore acting as a huge tide gauge was it swung round just before we were leaving port. Today's harbourmaster did not turn any boat away but tried his best to accommodate them. I was wondering why he was looking quizzically at Lady Martina as we left, and I found out once we arrived in turbulence outside Lowestoft Harbour. I had left our Dutch pottery Stork chick, Ooievaar. in his nest up on my radar reflector, with his legs dangling, and he lasted the entire voyage until the very end when he fell off but was recovered safely.
We carried the tide North along the coast with our progress being at least one knot faster and this rose to over 2 kn by the time we approached the Newcombe Sand buoy. The sea was smooth to slight throughout but the tidal turbulence at the entrance to Lowestoft caused by the interaction of the ebb with the coastal flow rocked the boat a little until we safely cruised into the outer harbour. We had met fishing vessel Orion on a coincident course as he was gutting his catch single-handed and then we were followed in by a Coastal Protection ‘warship’ which sailed through the Bascule bridge to its base in Lake Lothing. We radioed in and moored up just 1hr 40mins after leaving Southwold.
19-24 degC; RH 71→64%; 1023mb steady ; smooth/slight/mod seas with 9-13 knot breeze, variable; fair visibility with slight rain in the air
