52:58.48N 00:51.05E Thank you to all who responded to my bird question – it’s a turnstone on its way to breed in the Arctic.

Enjoyed our first night passage last night – it seemed surreal to be slipping our lines in the dark at 2315 to pass back out through the Fish dock lock into the Humber.  The huge ships previously mentioned seem even bigger as they glide by as mysterious shadows but it was a beautiful evening with a clear half moon (it’s neaps which was great for us as the Humber has strong tidal streams).  We brought the leisure radio up on deck and listened to the shipping forecast and ‘Sailing By’ so these will never sound the same again when I’m lying in bed at home.  Also, we’ve moved shipping areas from ‘Whitby to Gibraltar Point’ to ‘Gibraltar Point to North Foreland’ so we’re beginning to make progress.  I also realise I’ve already absorbed so much new information as previously I hadn’t a clue where Gibraltar Point is (if you’re the same, it’s south of Skegness at the north side of the Wash).  We’ve also moved onto a new pilot book which is very exciting.

Enough of my rambling.  Once dawn broke we had our first really good sail, both sails fully up – this is what we came for!  Luckily we’d just taken the sails down for the approach to Wells when we got hit by a squall with 30 knot winds.  They died a little for the approach into Wells, which is interesting to say the least – the pilot book describes it as ‘tortuous’ as the buoyed channel winds its way up a creek with 0.1 (below the keel) on the depth gauge at one point despite the harbour master’s assurance there was enough water.  Sadly I didn’t have the camera out for the moment when a rogue wave drenched Gordon but otherwise a very satisfactory passage and two exhausted sailors about to visit the town in search of a pint.