Light winds again, just like our passage up the Channel. In the last couple of days, we’ve probably beaten all our past records for motor sailing.
We left Woolverstone, passed Pin Mill in a calm and headed down the Orwell, finding wind eventually for about half the first leg. It was a bright and sunny 40 miles from Harwich to Lowestoft along the low-lying but beautiful Suffolk coast. With a near-spring tide carrying us along, Spring Fever reached 9 knots over the ground at times as we passed Aldeburgh and Southwold.
It was more exciting than we bargained for at Lowestoft. We arrived just as a stream of fast catamaran workboats surged back into the harbour for the night from the wind farms and gas rigs, roaring past us as we approached the entrance – they must have been late for their tea. To complicate things the harbourmaster warned us on the radio that a large dredger was working just inside.
We stayed overnight in the Royal Norfolk and Suffolk Yacht Club marina, and dined in the club restaurant.
Next morning we set off for Whitby, a 150 mile overnight passage. There was almost no wind and a flat sea as we threaded our way between wind farms and gas rigs, the first few hours helped by a strong tide along the Norfolk coast.
The sheer scale of electrical and gas installations off the Norfolk and Lincolnshire coasts was impressive, with new windfarms still being constructed, service vessels rushing around and cranes mounted on big jack up rigs. These are floating platforms with extendable legs which are pushed down to the seabed to stabilise them. They lift heavy items such as the enormous rotor blades.
During the short midsummer night, the sea was lit by a full moon, with hundreds of red and white lights around us from wind farms and gas rigs. A faint glimmer from the sun stayed on the horizon all night, gradually shifting from north-west where it set to north-east where it would reappear.
We passed Flamborough Head in bright sunshine, and approached Whitby Harbour carefully: the south-going flood tide we had at the time could push boats in the direction of a rocky ledge that runs out from the south side of the entrance.
tide by tide 
What a fascinating insight into what goes on in the North Sea. Lovely to see Whitby in sun, too, as when we visited there it was enshrouded in a fog that made the legend of Dracula seem very real!