10/07/20
Leaving Studland Bay we left Old Harry Rocks astern making for the The Needles Channel, on through the Solent and into Chichester Harbour for our second anchorage. We were lucky to find an unused mooring buoy and claimed our place for another night of stillness and peace, we drank some very good Portuguese red wine in the cockpit before the cold drove us inside. Not too late to bed as we needed to catch the tide at 06:00 hours and after a long day of 14.5 hours we were ready to meet Nod.

11/07/20
Eastbourne today passing Selsey Bill then Hove where we phoned Hattie who lives 10 miles to the north and had a conversational wave as we went by. The Seven Sisters and Beachy Head were left behind as we turned north east for Eastbourne. We have never anchored there, this was a first. We passed the marina and sailed up the very wide and open roadstead into shallower water where we were really surprised to find a very tolerable place to anchor, we had expected it to be rolly and unpleasant, such a relief.

12/07/20
We were underway at 07:00 hours. The tide was not with us so keeping well inshore we crossed Pevensey Bay and later beautiful Rye which has a drying harbour. By lunch time we were below what I always feel is an eerie and spectral Dungeness. Its old nuclear power station loomed large and grey but its endless beach was splashed with colourful fishermen's tents and people walking their dogs. Here we waited for the change of tide to take us on fast through the Dover Straits and to sweep us round Shakespeare Cliff and South Foreland up to the eastern shores of Kent. The Goodwin Sands channelled Jobiska north to Ramsgate for our final night before home port.

13/07/20
Up at 04:30 hours, after a fairly restless night for both, it was good to wake up properly. Underway by 05:00, across the Thames estuary where there was surprisingly little traffic for a change, something of a relief. And on we go passing Clacton and Frinton on Sea, the gorgeous Walton Backwaters behind Walton on the Naze, then Harwich on the Stour and Felixstowe on the Orwell our first taste of Suffolk this year. Favourite rivers followed: the Deben with its great pub the Ramsholt Arms on the way to Woodbridge and the Alde with its tricky entrance leading on to Butley river where we love to anchor, finally we passed the Blythe and glorious Southwold. Our neighbours Glynis and Mike emailed us from Thorpeness where they had been sitting on the beach and seen a yacht passing, was it us they asked and we are sure it was as there were no other boats seen on AIS in the area - that felt extraordinary. Then into Lowestoft Harbour where we were delighted to find friends Judy and Harry, their son Tim and daughter Frances with Mike and their son Leo waving flags to welcome us back. This felt just wonderful, Judy and Harry came on board a year ago to say farewell the day before we left for the Caribbean so to see them at the end feels very good indeed.

So here we are back in our home port of Lowestoft (See gallery for final photo of Jobiska entering Lowestoft Harbour)
Now safely moored up in the Lowestoft Cruising Club and all that remains is to pack up and go home, oh yes and drink champagne!

4,332 miles in time of a corona virus pandemic: Turks and Caicos - Azores - UK.