Saturday 5 June
Sunday 6 June
Monday 7 June
Tuesday 8 June
Wednesday 9 June
Thursday 10 June
Friday 11 June
Harleyford to Runnymede
Runnymede to Hampton Court
Hampton Court toTeddington
Teddington to Limehouse Basin
Limehouse Basin to Chatham
Chatham to Tollesbury
Tollesbury
returns to top of this page
The river was busier than we had seen it all year. At Marlow Lock there was a gaggle of scouts in a mass of Canadian Canoes waiting to lock up. Then there was the normal mayhem at the National Scout Boating activity centre to dodge - more canoes and a mass of sailing dinghies herded by a couple of careful coaches; followed by a rowing eight and a dinghy race at Bourne End sailing club.
At Cookham lock a small cruiser was called into the lock by the lock-keeper; the skipper asked if it was OK not to switch off his engine as he had starter motor trouble. The lock was crammed with boats, and the lock keeper quite rightly asked the skipper to reverse out and he would lock him down separately in the next locking. Bye-laws come into this somewhere. Then, another cruiser – a big one – got hung up on its ropes. The lock keeper had to run the length of the lock to let water in to relieve the strain on the ropes. And while all this is going on the poor chap got a phone call from someone wanting to book one of the moorings at the lock.
After all this excitement it was plain sailing until we got near to Windsor where the day trippers in hire boats outnumbered the ducks. At one lock, the lock keeper threatened the crew with a walk back to their hire base if they didn’t stop larking around, after a rather fast entry into his lock followed by an equally abrupt stop, all accompanied by much shouting and laughter.
Finally we arrived at Wraysbury to find our normal spot fully occupied, so here we are at Runnymede instead, moored up for the night a little too close to the A308 and its noise. And of course under the flight path from Heathrow, but that is impossible to escape in these parts.
Scouts at Marlow lock
Waiting to go through Boulters Lock
Moored up at Runnymede
We started the day with a delightful walk through woodland up to the Runnymede Royal Air Force 2nd World War Memorial to those who perished and who had no known grave. There are 20,455 names listed in the cloisters of the memorial which is impressive and at the same time beautiful, and with stunning views.
The peace and tranquility was slightly marred by the relentless flights departing Heathrow, many of which passed directly overhead. Some thoughtless idiots had fly tipped the rubbish from some building work in the lane leading up to the memorial, not 100m from a notice asking people to respect the dignity of the memorial and not much further from the entrance.
We departed Runnymede at 11:00 and headed on towards Bell Weir lock.
First of all we stopped off for some Diesel at "Assured Boating" and topped up the tanks with just under 140 litres. The owner of this boatyard is converting a steel Dutch Cruiser similar to ours but a different make. But this is a conversion with a difference - he is modifying it to plane on hydrofoils!
At Bell Weir it was immediately apparent that the fine weather had brought out lots of happy boaters as well as plenty of spectators. At Shepperton lock there must have been over 100 people gathered to watch the boats go through, many of them patronising the several cafes overlooking the activity. Lots of pressure to get the rope over the mooring bollard first time!
We are now moored up just outside the golden gates of Hampton Court Palace. The weekend crowds have dissipated.
We have applied significant amounts of polish to the superstructure and will finish off polishing tomorrow. Everything must be spick and span for when we pass by the Houses of Parliament on Tuesday in case anyone important is looking!
There is a clear blue sky and it is still light as I write this at 21.45. Will it be a nice day tomorrow?
Rest assured we've got enough diesel!
An Egyptian goose
Moored at Hampton Court
This morning we walked around the gardens of Hampton Court palace and watched the gardeners getting ready for the forthcoming RHS annual flower show.
Our plan had been to leave the gardens by the back exit near to where we were moored which we have used before to get onto the tow-path. However as we got nearer to the back exit we could see a fence across the path. It wasn’t clear from a distance whether the fence was before or after the exit. It only became obvious when we were quite close and in no mood to retrace our steps.
After evaluating options ( hop over the wall – 8ft drop; walk back – 1 mile; shimmy round the fence on the wall – they’d thought of that one! ) we opted for the limbo dancing solution – see picture. A notice the other side informed us that the fence was to stop people getting into the flower show.
This was followed by some serious hull cleaning and polishing using the dinghy as a platform, which was tethered to the boat using a big rubber sucker.
After lunch we picked up Alan and Gill Speed at Hampton Court station who have joined us for the week. We then cruised down to Teddington, and moored at Stevens Eyot for the night ready for an early start on Tuesday to catch the tide down to Limehouse.
The great escape
Buffing up!
This week's guest crew taking sundowners
A quick breakfast and cuppa were followed by the remaining preparation for the trip. Finally we stowed all the loose bits and pieces as if for sea - lamps, books, picture frames and so on – and then we were on our way. The Thames can be very rough in the centre of London because the water is made extremely choppy by the passage of numerous trip boats, water taxis and big barges, so these precautions were essential.
The first stretches of river through Richmond were very serene and quiet. As we got closer to London the amount of commuter traffic visible at each bridge increased and we reveled in the fact that we were not part of this drudge.
By 8.00 we were at Putney, and by 9.00 were passing through Chelsea. The water was now getting very choppy at times – essential to hold on tight. The Houses of Parliament slipped by looking very splendid in the early morning sun. At Tower Bridge we called Limehouse Basin to advise our approach, and then got ready for the lock entry by putting the fenders over the side.
The entrance to Limehouse is quite narrow and by now the ebb tide was running strongly, so we motored past the entrance and then turned back upstream to make a more dignified but still quite tricky entrance into the lock, which was open and waiting for our arrival.
By 10.30 we were settled into our berth with just a few chores to do before the planned foray to Canary Wharf for afternoon refreshments and key provisions. One of these chores was to do a trial installation of our recently modified £39.99 B & Q gazebo. The idea was to see if two people could put it up on their own. The whole exercise was recorded by Alan for posterity and later technical appraisal!
This evening we are off to the Prospect of Whitby pub for our supper.
Houses of Parliament
Entrance to Limehouse
Nearly there
The final adjustments
The lock keeper warned us that the onshore wind had blown a lot of debris (even for Limehouse) into the lock entrance during the night and it included a 10 gallon oil drum! Luckily there was another vessel in front of us and it kindly punched a channel through the mess which we followed! Thank you Alouette!
The Thames was quite calm at this time of the morning; not many trip boats at 7.30am. We headed down the estuary and past the “Dome” at Greenwich. By 8.15 we were at Blackwall point where we had to radio the controllers of the Thames Barrier for permission to pass through – it was the normal “Charlie Span Out”.
Apart from a few spots of rain, which had us worried for a minute or two, the weather was perfect – warm, sunny with a pleasant breeze and a smooth sea.
The passage round to the Medway was uneventful. The modified autopilot worked splendidly compared to last year – courses were held absolutely straight with no cross track error and turning at way-points was smooth – a joy to behold!
We were entering the land of bucket and chuck it, so one of the jobs on the trip was to empty the toilet holding tank as far out to sea as possible. As upper Thames river-users we are used to pumping out our toilet tanks into approved environmentally friendly disposal facilities. It seems strange that in the North Sea, with all its pollution problems, there is no alternative to pumping the tank contents into the briny.
One and a half hours up the Medway and by 2.00pm we were at Chatham Marina where we were quickly berthed into B32, hooked up onto the electric and ready for an excellent lunch.
In the afternoon a quick trip was made into the recently opened outlet stores adjacent to the marina to stock up on odds and ends to fill any gaps in the storage space that may have opened up on the way from London.
The PC to GPS interface was fixed as soon as it was discovered that the USB to Serial converter had chosen today to cease functioning – discovered when it crashed the computer while being gently nudged. Luckily there was a back-up on board.
The day ended with a Captain’s stir fry washed down with two bottles of red and a bottle of white.
Approaching the Thames barrier - "Charlie Span"
Being overtaken by a ro-ro "heavy"
A late lunch at Chatham
Techy info - the die straight wake on autopilot
This morning was a more relaxing start as we had a 9:00 locking booked for our passage to Tollesbury. High tide was well above the water level in the marina, and we were on the Medway and heading out to sea by 9:10.
The weather was overcast with occasional light showers of rain. We retraced our steps from the previous day to Garrison Point at Sheerness and then headed out East into the main shipping channel. The over-falls at Garrison Point were creating numerous eddies which made steering quite a challenge for a few minutes until we had passed them.
Next on our port side was the 2nd world war wreck of the Liberty ship Richard Montgomery which was carrying ammunition and broke its back on a sand bank while at anchor waiting for its convoy to Normandy. It still contains thousands of tonnes of ammunition, enough to blow out the windows of buildings in Southend and flatten Sheerness, so it is said. All this next to a major shipping channel. We headed on by as fast as we could (6.5 knots through the water!).
After a few major course changes to comply with the International Collision Avoidance Regulations, as well as the principle of might is right, we had the sandbanks and spitways of the Thames estuary pretty much to ourselves. There was a force 2/3 south westerly behind us and the sea state was slight – not bad really, though the sky failed to brighten up.
The Maplin Sands firing range was busy testing live ammunition and though it was a good five to six miles away the sound was quite impressive, arriving several seconds after the visible and amazingly large puff of dark grey smoke from the guns.
Our course was a bit of a zig-zag to keep to deeper channels, the range of depths being from more than 60ft of water below us to less than 5 feet as we crossed Buxey Sand between the Swin Spitway and Wallet Spitway safe water buoys.
We were soon on the home run to the Nass Beacon on a 7.5 mile leg with the wind beam on and over the tide – ‘Twas a trifle choppy and for the first time we got considerably wet decks. As we entered the Blackwater and followed the line of Red and then Green cans plus the odd withie here and there, the water calmed down, the sun came out and the scene become one of tranquil East coast mud flats, wading birds and boats bobbing on their moorings under a blue sky. We picked up a Tollesbury Marina floating mooring at the entrance to Woodrolfe Creek where you wait for the water level to rise until there is enough clearance over the sill into Tollesbury marina proper. Bliss.
The tranquility was soon broken with the arrival of about eight dinghies, each crewed by one adult and two or three young children, and in the company of two safety boats. This was apparently one of their favourite sailing areas and they proceeded to tack up and down this part of the fleet, which is not very wide, with us in the centre.
Well it had to happen. And it did. One of the dinghies cut it too close to us and tried to sail between us and our mooring buoy. Now this requires consummate skill and the ability to bend the laws of physics. Why? Because the mooring line is about 18 inches off the water line and the mast of the dinghy is about 30ft high! The dinghy stopped quite quickly! …..and became firmly wedged under our anchor, and between the bow and the mooring buoy, pinned in by the wind. It required a fair bit of man handling and the towing power of a safety boat to pull it out from its predicament. Profuse apologies followed. A quick inspection revealed a bit of scuffing of the paint and one small chip out of the paint-work which hopefully can be attended to from the contents of my paint locker without too much difficulty.
The same chap who had just been released from his tangle with our mooring lines then nearly collided with our tender as he tried to regain control.
As I write this there is now 4ft of water over the sill according to the tide gauge and we will soon be able to complete the last half mile into the marina where we have a table booked at the club restaurant for tonight.
Wreck of the ammunition ship Richard Montgomery in Medway estuary
Get your bananas here!
Scraping a dinghy off the front of Starry Night
Tollesbury Marina
Applying paint to the scrapes made by the earlier confrontation with a dinghy
Today was "at leisure" with nothing much planned and nothing much done. The scratches and scrapes inflicted yesterday when the sailing dinghy tried to impale itself on our bows received another coat of primer. Then we went into Tollesbury village to do some shopping.
The man in the white van parked in The Square had an excellent range of high quality fruit and veg which we stocked up on.
We had a farewell drink with Alan and Gill in the Kings Head as they were leaving us at this point, to take a bus to Colchester and then train via London home to Derbyshire.
The afternoon was spent relaxing. Maureen got out her artist clobber and did some sketches for later paintings.
Stocking up on fruit and veg from the man in a van
Saying goodbye to Alan and Gill
View from the back of Starry Night
Copyright © 2004-2009 Mike Hawkridge