Au Revoir Angleterre Bon Jour France

A couple of weeks later than we had planned but we have finally arrived in France. We entered Teddington Lock at midday and travelled down the tidal Thames to pick up our pilot Mark at Eel Pie Island.   It was beautifully gentle which was a relief, as we haven’t ever been on the tidal section of The Thames before.  We slowed down to moor up at the island but Mark just jumped aboard and we were off with the outgoing tide.  We swept through London at over eight knots and managed to miss all the bridges and other river traffic. A really great way travel through London.

Once we were past the Thames barrier the river traffic gets much bigger.  We were overtaken by a very large ship as we passed under the QE2 Bridge.  The bridge had its customary traffic queue to the tollbooths, no queues for us! Once we cleared the Thames we lost the benefit of the outgoing tide and the going became much harder. Marks plan was for us to overnight at a pontoon (Old rusty barge) at Queensbrough off the Medway. By the time we got to the estuary it was past 10pm and dark, Mark expertly navigated Kevin upstream and to a pontoon, Kev could hardly see what he was mooring up to. We tied up and spent the night there our total journey time was 10.3 hours, our longest trip ever.

Tuesday 23^Rd July

Thunderstorms during the night.  Next morning the weather forecast was good, slight wind and poor visibility and possible fog so we set off at 9am to cross the channel hoping all would be well.  As we were waiting for the benefit on the tide Mark decided to take us the scenic route around the Isle of Sheppey along The Swale, which was a narrow channel due to the low tide. It was a nice gentle meander and we saw basking seals.  We then hugged the coastline until Margate, which gave us something to look at and then turned the corner to head out in to open water. Our route took us across 3 shipping lanes, this section of the journey took us 2 hours.

The weather was great, sunshine, no wind and the sea was calm, ‘almost’ millpond so we were very lucky with this situation. But the visibility was not brilliant.  Mark told us that he had been keeping an eye on the visibility and would have turned back before we got to the shipping lanes if it had deteriorated too much. 

As we got to the first shipping lane there were 2 large ships that appeared out of the mist, quite a way away.  But although they were no danger to us at all, it was daunting to see how fast they were moving and their wake gave us a bit of a roller coaster ride.

The Dover coast guard had been issuing warnings of a ship being towed in one of the lanes. You can imagine how glad we were to find that we were on a collision course with it when we got to the second lane.  Mark suggested to Kev to give it some welly to ensure we could pass in front of it with complete safety, which we did. So not at all bad, we only saw 3 ships in what is the busiest shipping in the world. 

It was dark as we approached Dunkerque but Mark again expertly guided Rangali into the harbour.  He even managed to find us a mooring as it was past 11pm when we got there and it is holiday time in France. 14.3 hours total journey time and we were absolutely worn out.

It is with much relief that our journey is over and we are safe in France but we owe a big thanks to two people – MARK our pilot who was fantastic and SIMON PIPER for building such a great boat. We motored for 24.6 hours in total over two days and the boat never missed a beat. Mark commented on how well the boat handled which was nice to know.

Wednesday 24^th July

Rest Day, phew we needed it.  Mark had to leave very early in the morning to get back to London, and we were up early too as we had moored on the pontoon very close to the fuel pump, and we were in the way of a boat trying to fill up.  Once they had gone we filled up too,  448 euros worth and we then moved the boat to the vacant the visitors mooring.

Once we had got the boat back to normal, unpacking everything, un-taping doors and drawers (nothing was broken), checked our French MyFi worked (bought on internet in UK) we went for an early lunch at the local marina restaurant and chilled.  We noticed that we both felt odd, felt like we were still on the boat, so we had a couple of beer!

We walked to see the sea lock we have to go through and we have a time of 10.20am for tomorrow, it will be the biggest lock we have ever been through.  We will then be in the French canal system.  Wish us luck!

ps the visitors mooring is packed again, we are surrounded by sailing boats, we are the odd one out

Captain Kev concentrating

Leaving the mooring at Queensborough the next morning
The boat on the right is now at Dunkirk,  two boats from us and one guy from that boat came
and asked if we were the barge that arrived in the dark and moored up.

France in sight but still a few hours to go yet!