DOWN THE THAMES ESTUARY

Yes it's time I did a post.  Off at 6am with Sid the Pilot.  Out of London in the dark with Canary Wharf and all the Bank Buildings blazing lights.  Who's there at 6 in the morning??  I steered through the Thames Barrier which was an awesome sight.  We radioed through to London VTS to get permission to go through. It was lucky we did as they closed it just after for 3 hours as a surge due to the spring tide came up the Thames.

The Thames Barrier

Dawn broke under the Emirates Cable Car and the M25. Out into the wider Thames, we went under Sid's guidance from red buoy to red buoy to red buoy ....... on an ebbing tide, taking turns to helm, doing 9.5 to 10 knots. Later the sun shone, I sat out on deck, it was fantastic! Then it was my turn to helm again.  No problem until a massive container ship decided to overtake me on the wrong side (starboard) and then he cut across my bow!  When we hit its wake, it threw Soraya from side to side and knocked us all across the wheelhouse - what a plonker!!

The b..... ship

We recovered and carried on into the calm again.  Once we turned south round the corner of Kent into the Channel it got rougher and lumpy into Ramsgate. Sid said we would be there by 4.00pm, after 10 hours of full revs we were 7 minutes late!  New pilot? No Sid was great.