Rusty the Junk - Lowestoft

Rusty at Lowestoft Cruising Club.

Through the main bridge into Lake Lothing, one comes to Lowestoft Cruising Club. This is the home to many of our friends. It is a traditional Cruising Club, owned by its members, and they do all the work themselves.
Of the people there it is invidious to single out special friends, but we have to mention:

• Penny, Stuart & Megan on Meltemi of Rhu
• Robin & Sue on Apache Warrior

Lowestoft Cruising Club was our jumping off point, when we left the UK in Rusty, heading directly East to IJmuiden.

Oulton Broad.

Through the railway bridge and through Mutford Lock and bridge, one comes to Oulton Broad. The Broads are very much a Suffolk and Norfolk thing, having been formed when peat diggings were flooded. They stretch a surprising distance inland, South to Beccles and Bungay, West to Norwich and North almost to North Walsham.

Cow on the Broads.

In 1999 we came up the broads to Beccles with Penny and Stuart on Mary Jo. At one point along the river to Beccles, a cow in the neighbouring field mistook the sound of Duet's engine for that of the farmer's tractor, and followed us along the tow path for some time, mooing furiously.

In 1994 we went up the broads in convoy, with Dougie an old fashioned wooden motor cruiser, Jolene a modern inshore fibreglass fishing boat and Fée Pecheur an unmasted yacht.

Mary Jo on the way to Beccles.

We entered through Lowestoft and went round to Beccles. A pleasant trip through mostly farmland. The expressions on the faces of the anglers, watching a trawler going past, were a joy to behold.

We returned to Oulton Broad and turned left towards Haddiscoe Bridge and The New Cut. At the bridge we attempted to drop Duet's mast, with assistance from the fishermen with us. Unfortunately the gooseneckThe bit that joins the boom to the mast. shattered in the process. It was made of cast aluminium and over the years had crystallised. In some ways this was fortunate, since the same thing while sailing in a gale could have been extremely tricky. We proceeded along The New Cut with some caution, because it is not very deep. Stopping at Reedham Ferry. At Reedham, we obtained a piece of oak from which we fashioned a new gooseneck, which served us for several years until we got a new mast.

We continued up the broad to the outskirts of Norwich. Again an interesting trip, partly countryside and partly industrial. We stopped short of Norwich because of the bridges.
We left three of the boats and all boarded Fée Pecheur, which had the lowest air draft and went on a tour of Norwich.
Seeing a city from the water is completely different to any other view of it. It was quite hard to get our bearings in terms of streets, but it was a fascinating trip.

We returned to Reedham where we took leave of the other three boats, who returned to Southwold through Haddiscoe Bridge and Lowestoft. We continued to Yarmouth, where we stayed for a few days.
In earlier trips to Yarmouth by road, we had discovered a delicatessen/sandwich bar called Buttie Baron. This was run by a couple who became good friends, Clare and Paul. When we paused in Yarmouth, Clare who was 6 months pregnant and Paul came aboard Duet for a meal. This required climbing down a short ladder from the quay wall. All was fine until departure time, when shock horror the tide had gone out. The climb up the ladder was now about 15ft. Clare with amazing fortitude managed the climb back up and only held it against us for a few years.
As a footnote to that story, shortly after Alex, the lump in Clare's stomach, was born, the aforementioned Paul walked away, responsibility at that level being something he couldn't cope with. We're glad to say that Clare is now married to Karim, a really nice, intelligent man, who has adopted Alex and they now have another son, Max.