>. The final Chapter! Monday 3rd Well we got to Yalding for lunch and returned to Allington for G&T Stopped in Maidstone so I could replenish my beer stocks from Majestic. It quite strange when you havent seen traffic or people for over a week just how frantic "normal" life is!
Tuesday 4th The alarm went off at 5.45 and the lock keeper already had the lock set and was awaiting our entry. Tide was in the last throes of its flow and didnt slow us down very much. Under Aylesford bridge plenty of room to spare, has anyone ever used the "barge blocks" just below the bridge? By the time we had got to the paper mills at Snodland the tide had turned and we were really on our way. Listening to Medway VTS the gave a weather report of force 4 gusting force 5 this was contrary to all the forcasts we had seen the night before thet were force 3! Went to check on the web at: http://www.iossc.org.uk/weather/index.php?n=3 which is a live weather station at sheerness and sure enough they were right. We decided to see what it was like when we reached Grain Edge. Very littlle traffic on the tideway down to Sheernes really had the place to ourselves. Down Long Reach there was a fishing boat full of people with binoculars I assume they were twitchers. As we approached the South Kent bouy a container ship was coming in escorted by two tugs looking as if it was going to Thamesport, It wasnt, it was going into Sheerness which meant we had to go outside it having positioned ouselves for a run up the correct side of the channel, I was listening to Medway VTS but nothing was said. Out to Grain Edge where allthough it was force 4 it was no where near as rough as the previous time due to the fact that the wind and tide were not in opposite directions, we then turned to Nore Swatch and when we turned again towards Mid Swatch we found we had lost the tide as we were still 2 hours before low water, we got no advantage from the tide until we reached Coryton. Arrived at West Blyth and it was time to think about crossing the shipping channel to the north bank there was a lot of shipping about so we had to make a dash across to Mucking no3 Full throttle for 10 minutes saw across the channel behind a cobelfret boat and infront of a scandinavian boat bound for Tilbury. By now we were flying up the Thames looking good for a 7.30pm arrival at Brentford no more large inbound traffic on the river just a couple of outbound from the LPG place near the QE2 bridge. There was quite a lot of police activity after the barrier, boats going every which way but none interested in us so we got through without being boarded. Passed Limehouse at 1700 and called to cancel our 19.30 booking as we would be in Brentford by then. The bit between Limehouse and Westminster bridge was very choppy and really unsuited to anything with low freeboard, I think that possibly the PLA should ban narrowboats from this reach when the trip boats are running. After we passed Wandsworth bridge things got quieter and the rest of the trip was quite uneventful arrived Brentford at 1900 and had to wait for the lock keeper for an hour but at least we packed away all our sea going gear. Highlight of the trip through London was the raising of Tower Bridge for us, well it wasnt really for us but the sailing barge that followed us through. Left Brentford at 10am Wednesday and had a slow trip to Denham, did Denham to Lady Capels today and home tomorrow. -- Julian Tether Barge Parglena e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
