With the promise of an almost perfect weather day for sightseeing and wandering round historic Whitby, we planned to make the most of it with an early start, though we were frustrated by the HM who told us we would have to move the boat, and we rafted outside another small yacht with some complicated warp arrangements. We did eventually get off, and as Benj had underprovided his daily pills, and would be a week short, he threw himself on the mercies of the Boots pharmacist and got some emergency supplies.  While Cate was exploring the shops on the west side of the Esk, I visited the Captain Cook Museum, which was a very well laid out and very informative exhibition, covering Cook's early days as an apprentice to Capt Walker, whose cottage houses the collection, and all his subsequent explorations. There is a lot of detail about the scientific and ethnographic discoveries, with original letters and articles by Banks and others, as well as all things nautical. We met up again at the Dolphin, and did our crossword outside in the late afternoon sunshine. The plan had been to leave at 0200 on the first bridge opening for what was to be a long overnight passage to Grimsby, but a final check on the forecast showed that we must wait another 24 hours to avoid a very bumpy ride with more F6 wind on the button, so we informed the HM and prepared for another night's stay.
The next day (Thursday) Cate had a session at the hairdresser and Benj refuelled the boat from our spare can, and refilled from the pump in the marina, then we met up again and climbed the 199 steps to the Abbey. It was another gloriously sunny day, and after wandering round the ruins (with a helpful audio guide courtesy of English Heritage), we sat down against one of the columns and ate crab sandwiches with Fentimans lemonade.  As we watched the view across the harbour entrance, we saw a yacht being towed in by the lifeboat - there but for the Grace of God, and God bless the RNLI!  I felt rather tense in anticipation of an early start at 0200, and after preparing our lines etc for an easy getaway in the dark, I went to bed to get some sleep, leaving Cate to fill the flasks for the next day, as we had no more shore power from now.