The traditional end of season cruise in company for our yacht club is a visit to Ipswich, all of six miles upriver from our home port at Levington.
The Wet Dock - once thronged with Thames barges, sailing ships and fishing smacks - is currently undergoing a remarkable transformation. The working port had long been moving further down river, as ships got too big to use the lock.
Now that even the last small coasters have gone and the historic quayside buildings, warehouses, mills and maltings, are all being transformed into upmarket loft-style apartments, interspersed with bars, restaurants and art galleries.
And the vast locked dock - it was the largest expanse of enclosed water in Europe when it opened in 1942 - is filling up with more and more marina berths. It's a cruising destination hugely popular with summer visitors, especially when the weather is bad: the town centre, shops, cinemas, museums and all, is within easy walking distance.
It's rather urban for our summer cruising tastes and as we live in Ipswich, it rather lacks the required sense of getting away from it all. But last weekend, with limited time available, we thought it would be fun to join the club cruise. And what a good decision that was.
For one thing, we had yet another “last day of summer.” Saturday was bright and breezy, but Sunday morning was positively hot, with no wind at all. We wished we hadn't taken our shorts off the boat!
And what a great social time we had, too. We've had a problem in the past with booking restaurants for club cruises, because there are usually too many people to be comfortably catered. So this time our cruising captain decided we should do our own thing.
Six boats took part in a “round robin” supper party, two providing starters, two main courses and two sweets - with everyone getting to meet a different combination people in a different boat for each course.
It began with a communal Pimms party - still warm enough to sit in the cockpit until it went dark - and then we enjoyed a veritable feast, meeting some new people, and getting the opportunity to look at their boats (always an interesting privilege) before we all gathered again for coffee.
Of course, it wouldn't have seemed half such a good idea if it had been pouring with rain, and we'd had to dash between boats getting soaked, arriving with mountains of wet oilies to contend with.
But already the weathermen are promising us yet another high pressure, and more sunshine, for the coming weekend, too. Would it be tempting fate to take the shorts back on board? We're hoping for yet another “last day of summer” - and maybe a bit more sailing. But we might struggle to have a more unexpectedly enjoyable weekend.
