Day 5 Wednesday 7th Sept
Queenborough to Tower Bridge 37 miles
We have talked about taking Stiletto up the River Thames for years. Today we are going to do it. All the way to Tower Bridge and into St Katherines Marina where we were going to host Andy's 3 daughters and their partners for drinks and nibbles in the cockpit. We saw seals on the flats and occasionally one would pop up very close to the boat. A sure sign that the quality of the water of the Thames is good. We went under the QE2 bridge. I have been over it many times but seeing it from the water and passing underneath was awesome. We needed to radio for permission to go through the Thames Barrier and I was very emotional as my uncle was part of the design team for the barrier and he would have loved to have been aboard Stiletto when we went through. We past the new super port, Greenwich Observatory and Cutty Sark as well as the O2 and Canary Wharf. Luxury apartments seemed to be going up left right and centre - some of the designs seemed a bit outrageous and were a stark contrast to some of the beautiful old buildings that still occupy the banks of the river.What was most distressing for us was the vast amount of empty buildings, wharves and dis-used piers. Such a massive waste of money and I wonder why and where all the industry has gone. Globalisation? we need to bring it back. We arrived at St Katherine's Marina an hour early. It has a lock which was to open at 4pm to allow us and a few other boats in. So we tied up to a waiting buoy until we were called to go through. Being so close to Tower bridge was just amazing and once through the lock and inside the basin I couldn't get over that we were right in the heart of London - on our boat!!
The girls and guys arrived and we had a lovely evening all together in the cockpit.
Thought for the Day: Buy a boat, put it in St Kats and live aboard. For people working in the city the savings would be colossal.
Song for the Day: London Calling by The Clash
Incident of the Day: I had my first experience of putting a mooring line through a mooring loop on a buoy. Successfully.