We thought that to conserve water the lock opening times into the marina were limited so we headed for the 11am. lock. As it turned out we could probably have locked in at anytime. Anyway, the lock keeper had us straight in. The mooring pontoon in the lock had been taken out so that a ship could fit in the lock so we had to moor to the chains that hang down the side of the lock. This was a bit awkward as we weren’t really prepared but with some judicious use of the bow thruster, fending off and with no other boats in the lock we survived with no damage. Once in we called the marina but after mooring up on the allocated berth we felt really exposed to collisions with other boats. A quick chat in the office and we were back in the berth we occupied last week, that we had found very well sheltered and comfortable.
Given the train strikes the next day, we decided to head home that afternoon. We had a few appointments to honour and with the wind forecast to be against us for a few days it seemed the most sensible thing to do. A long and tiring journey but we were back home by 9pm. Everything in good order although the garden was a little overgrown. Will take a blog break now until we are back in Ipswich.