Friday 21 June 2013

Chance on Thames again

It's been another great day on board Chance, thanks to Doug and James.  This morning, I got the train from home to Teddington, where I met up with Chance for the journey down to Limehouse.  We went into the lock (they put us in the huge barge lock, but using the gates half way down) just after 1pm.  There were boats arriving from Brentford in the usual lock (including Parisien Star).  There were eight boats in our lock, but all the others were going off at Brentford.


Then we were off down the Thames.  We had lunch on the way, before reaching central London, and the exciting bit.  It was warm and sunny as we made our way through the city.





There were some big boats around, and it took quite a lot of concentration to steer into all the washes.




After Tower Bridge we were looking out for the entrance to Limehouse Marina.  There were three big boats coming the other way, making lots of wash (and I mean lots of wash) which James had to steer into.  It put us quite a long way over the river.

Adrian had been in London for meetings, and had managed to get to Limehouse to watch us arrive.  He looked tiny up near the entrance to the lock, but took some great photos of us approaching.



It all meant that we ended up doing a straight-in entrance to the lock -- not really what we'd intended, but James handled things really well, and we didn't touch the sides at all.


Going up in the lock, they just open the gates and let the water in.  It was raining by then, so we got a little wet as we moored up, at the end of an exciting cruise.

Check out Chance's blog for their account of the day.

3 comments:

Les Biggs said...

Mmmmmm perhaps one day I might be brave and face the waves.

Mrs. Jaqueline Biggs said...

Imagine our surprise yesterday morning as we were cruising up to toward old Windsor lock, to come 'round a corner as see a boat called The Briar Rose coming towards us. It was 8:30 am and neither of us was really firing on all cylinders yet mentally or we would have realized immediately it was not you and Adrian. Les called out excitedly, "Look it's Briar Rose!" and we both began to smile like idiots and wave like maniacs. The poor bloke on the back in a brimmed leather hat having a morning cuppa with his missus looked even more confused than we felt!

This are some very large waves coming up against NB Chance in those pictures. Glad it all went well.
Jaq and LesXX

Adam said...

We have met the people on The Briar Rose. They're the only two Briar Roses around, although they have the all important The!

There we're some big waves just outside Limehouse. A few came right over the front deck. It's more interesting doing e tidal Thames in that direction, but getting into Limehouse isn't for the faint hearted.