Woke early this morning, even before the alarm - we were going to pass through the centre of London today….!! It felt like such a milestone for us.
I put the kettle on for a quick coffee while Patrick checked to see if our neighbours alongside had seen our note. If not, they were in for a rude awakening and I didn’t want to be the “grim reaper”. He found a note on our door saying they would be awake and ready for the move at 04:45 (phew). I stowed away much of our “loose” stuff as I was still partly traumatised by yesterday, although Patrick assured me today was not going to be anything like yesterday. We left our mooring at 04:59 after a quick thank-you to our neighbours, who were very sweet and understanding. Patrick was correct, the water was much flatter, with the occasional wake from passing ships. We passed through a lot of industrial areas for a while and then it became more residential. The river was really wide so we couldn’t get a good look at the houses / snoop.
I was just settling into a comfortable state when Patrick said to prepare for a very large wake from a carrier ship, “Pauline” heading towards us. We couldn’t avoid it and I was tempted to ask Patrick if we could turn around and “out-run” it! (I didn’t ask because I suspected he would say that was ridiculous – even I knew that). So I just watched it approach us, I didn’t even reach for my camera - honestly you could surf on this. While I am writing this retrospectively and there is the risk of my overactive imagination contributing to this, we both agreed that this was the steepest wave we had climbed with the deepest drop and then up again into the next wave! We could not avoid it and for a few seconds we were looking down into a deep trough.
Deux Poissons handled it like a champ and Patrick and I were silent for a few minutes after that. We had no words (even my overactive brain went quiet).
Fortunately that was the only one like that for the rest of the trip, although I kept an eye on every wake behind approaching ships, until we were in a “no ship” area.
We got a little chatty again once we passed under the Queen Elizabeth II bridge, recalling Patrick having spent years either crossing the bridge or just sitting on it in traffic (more the latter).
We had a chart (map) of the Thames and Patrick used a headache tablet as an indicator as to where we were – fairly useful on all counts and I was tempted to grab that tablet a few times.
And then a little after 09:15 we saw the Thames Barrier ahead and Patrick radioed for permission to cross. At 09:26 we passed through the Thames Barrier. If surviving “Pauline” hadn’t made me want to reach for a celebratory drink, this really did make me want to celebrate. We were on the Thames River heading towards London!
The water was really flat now, so I popped out onto the foredeck and was so disappointed to find that the camera I have put up on the mast (thankfully after the “Pauline” incident) wasn’t recording. It had been giving us trouble anyway but I had hoped it would have recorded some iconic first moments for us.
We are going to be passing back down this way in a few weeks, so I will have another opportunity to record then. And more importantly, “Pauline” will hopefully be docking in some far away land.
We passed Greenwich and Patrick pointed out that we had effectively crossed over from travelling in the East and were now travelling in the West. He clarified with the words “hemisphere”. I wasn’t sure if I should be feeling any different.
A little after 10h00am we saw Tower Bridge ahead. It was surreal to see it from this angle after having been on the banks of the Thames so many times. It really is magnificent. The span is 61m between the two towers and is split into two equal parts (I have been told they are called bascules). These bascules weigh about 1,070 tons each and are counterbalanced to minimise the force needed to raise them. They open completely within 5 minutes, which is crazy to think, considering their weight. Traffic on the bridge needs to stop for less than 10 minutes to allow ships to pass once the bridge is open.
It did occur to me that less than 10 minutes wasn’t very long for practically all of London traffic to stop and that we were important enough and big enough for the bridge to open for us – get the real London Bridge experience. Patrick reminded that we were neither all that important nor that big (I think with reference to Pauline). So I was happy with the experience of slowly going under her, real close up and personal with the towers.
By now I didn’t know which side of the boat to sit and look out of – London Eye, Houses of Parliament. It was so amazing. I was equally amazed at how many residential houses are along the Thames, not just flats and apartments and how green it was. There were so many huge old trees in gardens.
We moved through some beautiful areas – Chelsea, Richmond, Twickenham and passed under some stunning bridges – each one different. We agreed that our favourites were Tower Bridge and Hammersmith, although the Albert Bridge was really pretty. Albert Bridge was pastel green for years and then repainted yellow. Now it is pastel pink, blue and green, apparently to make it more visible during foggy weather (95% of the time in London). Over 4000 LED lights were also installed to illuminate the bridge at night – but we were not hanging around to see that.
Once we were through the centre part of London, Patrick and I reflected over the experience. Overall passing through London was not as challenging as we thought it was going to be (except for “Pauline”) – maybe sometimes a little rough and choppy with the water taxis and tourist boats. This is what the crew from the Little Ships of Dunkirk had said last night, so we were glad we took their advice.
We finally reached Teddington Lock quicker than we thought we would and overall the whole trip had been about 7 hours. Once through the lock we were officially on the Thames River proper – which is more like a canal. Slow moving and no tide. We got through the lock easily and tied up on the bank not too far up the river. We popped into the office at the lock and purchased a license to be on the river for a month.
What an amazing experience!
We had some lunch and then took a stroll into the town which was just over the river. It was such a hot sunny day and we felt we needed a moment to sit and enjoy what we had achieved. A cocktail and a beer was exactly what we needed! We then headed back to the boat for a BBQ on the front deck and to set our bodies into “slow-mode”.
