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The sea voyage from Denver to Grimsby passing under the Great Ouse bridges with good headroom and then Skegness in poor visibility and Mablethorpe where people thronged the beach and round the spit guarding the Humber estuary before cruising through the gates to Grimsby Royal Dock and the Marina. Just Di felt ill with the trip and the rest of the crew were fine.
It was an early start to the day and the 5.50am Radio 4 weather forecast for shipping was the first order of the day, followed by the inland shipping forecast on Radio 3 at 6.55am. These were still very favourable, and the only danger was to be fog for which we would keep a good watch and use our radar to advantage. I watched the tide closely and remained intrigued by its behaviour. It ebbs for a full 9-10 hours and then floods quickly in 1-2. You are waiting for the water to arrive and fear that tidal calculations are in error until it suddenly floods in and saves the day! It was still out first thing, and I took several photographs of the mud-banks for future reference. We made ready and then left at about 8.30am with the tide still flooding slightly which was about the earliest that we could manage.
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Leaving Ely after some leisure time visiting the cathedral and shop and then passing the Little Oue junction and arriving at Denver and locking through Denver Sluice to spend the night on the seaward pontoon ready for our sea trip to Grimsby.
Rafts of weed from the Wissey chocked the water intakes which had to be blown clear. It was a calm and restful night winds forecast of only force 2-3 and very slight and calm seas which suited us.
Our last day in Ely which Diana used to good effect, taking the girls into town again. We all had morning coffee together at the Boathouse cafe and then Di took Della to the Ely Cathedral shop to spend some of her crew money whilst Debbie went on her own to the library to find and read another "Sweet Valley High" book and she has now read about 45 out of 85 of them. Della is now also hooked on the "Sweet Valley Kids". They found these for the first time during our trip to America and they then renewed their acquaintance with them in the English libraries when finding them in the "young adults" section.
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Daniel was ashore visiting Angela as the family stayed with me in Ely and we serviced the Paxton Princess and tender and prepared for or forthcoming trip out of King Lynn to Grimsby. A nice lunch in Bonnets and then the girls went swimming as I caught up with my logs and journal.
The weather had made a real improvement today, with the sun coming out again. I reckoned we might have sufficient fine weather for our trip to Grimsby on Saturday
Another satisfactory night moored up on the newly refurbished public moorings at Ely. This was despite being near to the railway bridge. Ten or fifteen years ago, the railway used to be a terrible disturbance but now the reduced services mean that you hardly notice it at all. Then we all got on with some chores this morning. Yesterday we had got both holding tanks pumped out which pleased Diana and today we changed an empty gas cylinder and then filled up the outboard motors with 2-stroke fuel. I also did some greasing on the propeller shafts and rigged up the manual double-action bilge pump with nearly ten metres of hose pipe. Diana took the girls up into the town and Debbie went to the library whilst Della went round the shops with her.
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From the Twenty Pence Inn along the rest of the Old West river to Ely, negotiating shallows and weeds on the way. Daniel set off by train and car to see Angela as I worked at my charts and computer for most of the afternoon whilst the girls went swimming and roller skating. At least that warm and muggy weather had come to an end.
Another settled night on the Paxton Princess and then we got ready to set off at a reasonable time because rain was forecast for later. The boat had been aground outside the Twenty Pence Inn despite the recent dredging by the NRA. The crew were working well today as I had introduced a system of "crew points" for the girls who could earn money of they were helping on the boat. Even Daniel was at the helm for much of the time.
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