The day before: lots of things that could go wrong, and quite a few that did.
Anyway, finished work at 18H00, dashed home to change, load the car and pick up the crew. Surprisingly, we were still more or less ‘on track’ when we left the house. I say ‘surprisingly’, because it certainly didn’t feel like we were still on track.

Throughout the day I had tried to call the HM to assure that there would be no boats rafted up to us (like last time). I had been unable to get in touch with him, but had gotten through to ‘the office’ who promised to pass the message on.

However, when we arrived – you guessed it – a rather large yacht was rafted up to us. A brokerage boat, so no-one on board. Insert plenty of swear words here. Undaunted, we got our stuff on board. And whilst Brigitte sorted things out down below, Yanni and I busied ourselves emptying 3 20ltr jerry cans of diesel into the tank. Messy job.

That done, I got busy with warps to extricate ourselves from our berth without doing any damage either to Guapa or our unwelcome neighbour. It would have been just possible with the three of us, but luckily the skipper of the boat just ahead of us offered a helping hand – which made all the difference.

Ten minutes of huffing and puffing later we were finally on our way. Just as it was getting dark. Time to switch on the navlights. Snag – bow red/green didn’t come on. All the connections were checked, but no fault was found. Odd that. Tri-colour on + steaming light – not exactly correct, but at least we were showing something. River close to pitch-dark. Thankfully, I could do this with my eyes closed, because that is what it felt like. Bow navlight came on again and then promptly packed up for the rest of the trip.

Two million candles torch was brought on deck to look for suitable vacant mooring buoy off Levington. One was located, and by the third attempt we were all secure – swinging in the tide. One eminently forgettable Tesco ready meal later we were all ready for bed. Felt exhausted before we had even set off. I guess the week of 12-hour shifts had something to do with it.

Obstacles overcome. We’re here, and ready to go. Nite-nite.