I had previously experienced Grimsby, and was not keen to repeat the experience, so I stayed behind and did our laundry - necessary because we had somehow shipped enough of the North Sea into the forepeak to soak our bedding - while Cate made the long and dismal trek into town, around the derelict fish docks, which look like film sets for gritty and violent British gangland movies.  I did join her later, and we bought our provisions in a large modern shopping complex which must have sounded the final death knell to the dying fishing town, as grim as its name.   Tidal considerations suggested a departure on the start of the afternoon lock opening (1700), 'punching' the early tide down the Humber and catching the good tides round the first corner, and importantly after The Wash round the headland at Cromer.  Most of this worked out well, and the conditions were at last kind to us, and I hoisted the mainsail for the first time in many days, and actually SAILED (!!!) for an hour in the early morning. The stress on this trip of 19 hours was for once not the weather, but difficult light interpretation during my night watch, with VHF messages from a dredger to keep a safe distance, a complicated strange object moving slowly on our course whose identity I still have no idea about, a long tug-and-tow running on our course, and a massive wind farm casting bizarre radar shadows. Set against that was the most extraordinary clear starry night sky, and magnificent sunset and dawn, and amazing dazzling dayglow green  phosphorescence sparkling in our wake. I briefly turned off our nav lights and covered the plotter to get total darkness, and using the Google Sky app on my Galaxy tablet, I identified stars, including Vega directly overhead, and watched Venus rising over the eastern horizon while Jupiter shone brightly ahead of us. It is experiences like these which make all the difficulties worthwhile. By 0600 we were enjoying beautiful warm sunshine and a steady F3/4, without the engine noise, and in shorts and Tshirts eating our breakfast rolls, but by 1000 the wind was gone, and we motored into Lowestoft at midday. We refuelled before berthing and paid our dues at the magnificent 1903 building which houses the Royal Norfolk and Suffolk Yacht Club, where we sat outside and Benj enjoyed a pint of ale from the local  Tom Thumb brewery. (As an aside, I really wish I had catalogued all the different ales I sampled during the cruise - I started well, but didn't continue, so the only evidence I have now is in my sadly expanded waistline!)  We met friends Jim and Janet from theWellington Dock in Dover on our pontoon, in their motor cruiser Idle Hours. They had arrived on a straight run of 88nM  all the way from Dover, going outside the complex sandbanks and channels of the Thames Estuary, which gave me pause for thought: we need not actually do as planned and stop two nights at some of the east coast harbours, and could knock days off our passage home. (Of course, Jim did his passage  in four hours, planing at 20k, but each to his own!).  We had a superb meal of seabass fillets at the Yacht Club, and retired, Benj staying up a little later to revise the final passage plans.