Finally headed for Wells-Next-the-Sea

The weather forecast promised lighter winds this morning, so we laid careful plans to escape from Lowestoft. We've enjoyed our stay, but a week is long enough!

The alarm went at 0340, and we were away from our berth by 0430, with everything properly stowed away. The passage in to the harbour last week had showed how rolly the harbour entrance could be! We got permission to enter the harbour straight away and were soon motoring towards Great Yarmouth with the stay sail up and the no 2 jib bent on. Julian got the main up, but it stuck part way, so we reefed it to that point, set the jib, and motor sailed like that while drinking the tea I had made before we left the berth.

Once I was a bit more awake I spotted that the lowest mast hoop had got itself stuck on the goose-neck. Julian went forward and freed it, and we got the main up properly.

We motor sailed the whole day in the hope that we would make enough speed to reach Wells-Next-the-Sea in time to enter, and by running the engine at full throttle managed to make 6-7 knots in the morning. The wind began to decrease, so we swapped the no. 2 jib for the no. 1 at 1050, and that kept our speed up for long enough to counter the later effects of the wind going light, and the tide being against us, which brought our speed down to 3 knots.

We started pumping unexpectedly at one point, and I realised I had not shut the inlet valve for the heads. Our toilet is below water level, and if we forget to shut off the valve after we've pumped out it can fill and flood the boat. I'm glad we've got a float switch on the bilge pump!

Although we motored all day, we also sailed for most of it, including tacking though a fine array of well marked crab pots to reach Cromer.
 
We were able to sail more directly after that, as the westerly wind became north westerly allowing us a single fine reach all the way to Cley-next-the-Sea. After that the wind fell too much to be of use and we furled the jib away and got the main down.

We reached Wells fairway buoy by 1700, and called the harbour master. The instructions were to pass CLOSE to the red buoys in the entrance channel so we did. Julian had put trackback on on the chart plotter, and it was interesting to see out track meandering over what had been a drying part of the entrance when our charts were published!

The rollers in the entrance were interesting to steer across, and I was glad we had made it in time (just) to enter on a rising tide. The harbour launch met us just after the lifeboat shed, and led us along a very winding channel to the harbour office quay pontoon. We were moored up with the engine off at 1745.