Sunday 18 May 2014

15th-18th May : Thames Tideway

Woo-hoo!!!  We made it, and it was fantastic.

On Thursday morning we set off early from Paddington Basin,and after a hard day covering miles and 12 locks we reached our destination of Limehouse Basin mid-afternoon,
Limehouse Basin
and were able to secure a mooring next to the wall (later boats had to double/triple/quadruple moor beside each other, making accessing one's boat very much harder) Altogether there were 19 narrowboats gathered together in the convoy, which was most efficiently organised by Andrew Phasey of the St Pancras Cruising Club - to whom many thanks.

On Friday afternoon Robert arrived from Leeds to stay on the boat;  Sue and Dave had rented a nearby apartment, where we happily took up their offer of a shower. That evening we finally met our final crew member Simon Judge, whom we had corresponded with through Canalworld Forum, and who had volunteered not only to accompany us but to bring his VHF radio and several life-jackets.  We were so grateful to have his calm presence on board - he has done the Thames tideway many times and brought vast experience to calm our nerves.

On Saturday morning we were in the 5th (of 6) lock's worth of boats,
Emerging from Limehouse,
Canary Wharf in the background
emerging with some trepidation and a long blast of the horn into the ebbing tide at about 8.20 am, then travelling downriver for an hour and a half,
Greenwich
past Greenwich, the O2 Arena,
O2 Arena (and Robert)

the Woolwich Ferry, and the Thames Barrier
Passing the Thames Barrier

before lurking for a while at low tide at Margaretness.

The convoy leaving Margaretness

 When all the boats were assembled and the tide had turned we started back in single file with the flood tide helping us on our way, at what seemed to us a tremendous pace ( 5mph compared to our usual 2-3mph)  Very soon we had passed the entrance to Limehouse again, and before we knew it the landmarks were rushing towards us : Tower Bridge,the Shard

Tower bridge

London Bridge, Millennium Bridge, Westminster Bridge -too many bridges to keep track of- the Houses of Parliament and Big Ben, the London Eye etc, etc




There was an incredible amount of traffic on the river, not surprising for a Saturday morning, and we had fun dodging boats - the Woolwich Ferry, tourist 'clippers', river buses, party boats,a tug towing two enormous barges, the river police and the RLNI (scarily, we heard a Mayday call on the radio from another narrowboat in trouble by Waterloo Bridge, and saw the rescue boats speeding to help)
Palace of Westminster

London Eye



 The wash from all the boats made conditions very choppy, a huge contrast from the mill-pond conditions we had experienced at low tide down at Margaretness, and water splashed up over the bows and the stern. and washed into the front deck well through the drain holes.

Paddle steamer

Rowers at Putney



Dodging boats wasn't always easy

Tug towing barges



Sue and Roger trying to look calm...
.... as the waves get higher








Vincent Joseph chugged on steadily however, and once we were past the Houses of Parliament things began to calm down. After Putney Bridge we had to steer our way through large numbers of rowers skimming along past us, not to mention countless small cruisers
Rob ...

....Simon and Sue


...Jean

...Dave


Everyone took a turn at steering, so that we all had a chance to relax at various times to enjoy the views - and to eat sausage butties for breakfast, soup and rolls for lunch, plus copious amounts of tea, coffee, cake and biscuits!

After several hours we finally reached Teddington,

Teddington

A  bit of a squeeze

where the lock-keeper packed us all into the enormous Barge Lock, enabling the whole convoy to lock up on to the non-tidal Thames together.  We moored thankfully above the lock and opened a bottle of bubbly to celebrate our survival!

Cheers!


The others packed their belongings and left, and we collapsed with exhaustion, especially poor Roger, who with incredible bad timing had developed a wicked cold some days before, and on this long-awaited day was feeling absolutely rotten.  Thank heavens for good friends old and new to share the workload, as well as the pleasure.

5 comments:

  1. A brilliant day - thanks a lot. I have lots of photos which are strangely like yours. I will post a link so that others can use or view them. Hope Roger is feeling better and you have a nice time on the rest of Thames; from what we saw beyond Central London, it looked lovely. Probably catch you up at Oxford. Dave & Sue

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  2. .. and link to my photos is here:

    https://www.flickr.com/photos/24995997@N08/sets/72157644733200862/

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  3. Many thanks, Dave - great photos!
    Simon

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  4. Well done, Jean and Roger! Glad your great adventure went so smoothly. Hope you have a peaceful week to recover and for Roger to get back to full health again.
    Barbara

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  5. Wish I could have been there, looks so amazing.x

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