A week in London. (Mainly holiday snaps!)

Thankfully the weather changed for the better. This meant we had a good week for sightseeing. As we are in English Heritage we made the most of our card and went to the Wellington Monument and Wellington's House.

Tremendous views from the top.

You can even see the garden at Buckingham Palace.

As always we walk miles when in London. From Limehouse we walk to both Canary Wharf and Tower Bridge. To us no visit to London is complete without going to Greenwich.

This year for the first time we walked under the Thames via the tunnel from Greenwich to near Canary Wharf.

It was great to see Joe and Jan, friends who we met sailing in Turkey many years ago. They came over for coffee.

My sister and brother in law also came down for the weekend and stayed in a nearby hotel. A good time was had by all.

We had some other visitors.

We also found a new museum to us which was excellent, The Docklands Museum. I would highly recommend it, in fact we will definitely go back.

A wet trip up the Thames. 29th May 2018

Once again we were busy checking the weather before we set off, the forecast was not the best, but it would be okay.

The first job was to get out of our mooring. The boat on the outside of the raft new that we and the next boat along wanted to be off by 06.30. We had a difficult mooring to get out of, both plan a and plan b had been well discussed. A gentleman on another raft asked if we had a bow thruster. No said I but I do have a husband and a plan. I'm pleased to say the plan worked and we got off quite well. As be passed the gentleman he did say well done and that he didn't think we'd get out of that tight spot.

Once on the River Medway and approaching the mouth of the Thames, things began to get a bit lively. In the log I have written " Horrendous - wind, rain. Hard for John to steer a course." I must admit I did ask John if he wanted to turn back. However by 0900 the weather had greatly improved. So although it was a grey day we were making good progress up the Thames. We were passed by some of the Small Ships that were with us overnight in Queenborough.
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The weather then decided to get worse, a lot worse and as we went through the Thames Barrier we were in the middle of a thunder storm that got worse by the minute.  Despite the weather we knew we were safe and the end was near.

We heard the Massey Shaw coming up the River. When we had talked to them at Ipswich they had said they would wave to us as they passed us on the Thames. They did and it was good to see them.

We had thought that the weather couldn't get any worse, it could and it did!

It was good to reach Limehouse,  the lock keeper was so friendly despite the weather. We quickly got tucked into our corner, which was our home for the next week. It was good to dry out, we took a lot of drying out.

Sailing Information

39.7 NM logged. 7 hours 4mins

Long walk to facilities but they are clean.

Small laundrette

Friendly staff

5 mins from DLR, so quite central and much cheaper than St Kats

£339.15 for 7 nights 

River Orwell to Queenborough - 28th May 2018

To have good tides an early start was required and by 0525 we had dropped our lines after a peaceful night on the Orwell. We checked the weather and decided that it would be okay to set off. Sadly there was no wind to speak of so we were motoring. Visibility was not that good and varied throughout the journey.

We have been passed by a couple of small boats on their way to their home ports. We did not take many pictures as the visibility was not good. When the visibility is not good you are very grateful for the AIS as we can track all the larger traffic. We could see a very large boat was coming down the main channel and would pass in front of us. As soon as it passed we turned at right angles to pass through the wash. it was a good job we did. This was some of the worse wash we had encountered.

We had arrived at Queenborough at 12.45 and were totally moored up by 13.30. We were chatting with some other folk as we moored up so it took a little longer. This year we decided to treat ourselves and moored up on the new pier. this meant we could get on and off the boat when we wanted rather than having to rely on the trot boat. There were some Small Ships already at Queenborough and more arrived later. In fact a lot of boats arrived later and we were in a raft of three with rafts on either side of us.

We went for a wander round Queenborough but it was very warm and not comfortable walking. To be honest there is not a lot there. It is just a convenient spot to stop off to travel up the Thames. Later that night we went for a walk along the shore line and round the back. This is obviously where the new cars are imported to. We have never seen so many cars, the car parks went on and on and on.

Sailing information.

45.8 NM, journey time 7 hours 20 minutes

£20 per night on the pontoon (a little less on mooring buoys)

Facilities - nil

A week in Ipswich

The joys of being retired and not going on a long excursion this year meant we didn't have to rush off so we actually had a week in Ipswich. Our friends, Chris and Carol were already there when we arrived on the Monday, but we wouldn't see them as they had a five o'clock set off on the Tuesday. When we emerged about 7ish the following morning John checked Marine Traffic to see where Seaduction was, she was on her way back up the river, slowly. So all was not well. After texts we found found out that a weld on their engine bracket had failed. Chris managed to get it together with cable wraps as they made their way back. We stood by on their pontoon in case they needed assistance, but they didn't. They came in like a well oiled machine. After a couple of days they managed to get it all fixed, but by this time the weather wasn't playing nice so they couldn't get off to Ostend.

We generally pottered around the boat having fun we were looking forward to the weekend as the Marina was playing host to the Small Ships. On Friday we had a semi disaster as I discovered that the wire in the fist mike of the radio was degrading. A quick visit to Foxs told us that our make was now obsolete. We wouldn't have time for a new radio before we left on the Sunday plus it would be expensive. We nipped next door to the electrics shop to see if we could have it rewired. As it was a moulded connection this was a no go. However George came to the rescue, he leant us a fistmike for our summer travels. The good news is I have sourced a fist mike on ebay. As the delivery is over a few weeks I will have to plan the ordering carefully.

The weekend of the Small Ships was great, they all gathered and we had a great tour of the Massey Shaw. John had watched its renovation on Salvage Team so was pleased to see it in the flesh so to speak. The crew were extremely friendly.

The Massey Shaw in Action

First of the Engine pictures of the Massey Shaw.

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Little Ships at Ipswich Haven Marina.

Pictures of the Small Ships service.

We went to outdoor service on the Sunday morning, which was well attended and quite moving. Once that was over we prepared to set off and spend the night at the bottom of the Orwell. This meant we would not have to get up quite as early, although the alarm was still set for 5 .30 am.

Once again a delightful night on a buoy all was peaceful, though we were a bit anxious as the weather forecast was not brilliant. in the morning we would check again and either set off to Queenborough or head back up the Orwell.