London to Chatham 5th June 2018

All to quickly the week passed by and it was time to leave London. Another early start for us as we had booked the 06.30 lock. We were out and on the Thames by 06.35, very quick and very efficient. Just as we came out of the lock we realised that there was  film crew filming a speed boat. Not sure what film or TV show was being filmed but it was interesting.

We didn't get many photos coming up the river and by the look of the weather today we weren't going to get many great snaps today.

You can also see that we were wrapped up for the weather. One day I'm going to get a glamourous shot of me sailing!

Once again we were called up on the radio by VTS, this time it was to let us know that a barge was travelling up the river on our side (which basically meant it was coming up the River the wrong way.) It's good to know that various folk are keeping an eye on you and all the river traffic.

As we were going down the Thames we knew our friends Anne-Marie and Mick on Fleur of Pendle were coming up the river. It's silly how excited you get thinking you are going to pass someone you know on the river. We even tracked them on Marine Traffic.

The two purple boats are Rascal and Fleur of Pendle.

We were near enough to have a chat as we went by. They might note be the best photos in the world, but in my defence it was very bumpy.

We knew we would be meeting up with them again at Chatham.

The journey down the Thames went quite quickly, at one stage we were travelling at 8.2 knots. Going over the mouth of the river was slow going but we knew we would have the tide with us going up the Medway.

We were soon at Chatham. The lock in was painless and we were given a nice berth. More of Chatham in the next blog.

Sailing Information

48.4 NM logged  8hours 10 mins

Excellent marina - good facilities

Laundrette £2.50 for a wash and £2.50 drier.

Lots of works round the marina. 

Shopping centre nearby (which believe it or not I didn't have time to visit)

Lots of eating places

Cinema

Coop

Chatham Historical Dockyard