Monday 6th September 2010

Tidal Thames, Limehouse to Teddington

The Big Day has come and we make ready for our adventure on the Thames.

We had been warned a while ago by another narrowboat crew that the biggest problem they encountered was the wash from the giant rubbish barges that plough up and down the river. The lock keeper had told us that we would not encounter them.

We shared Limehouse Lock with another narrowboat called Lanser, the lock-keepers decided that the wide-beam boat would not fit in with us. As the crew of Lanser had been on the tidal river before we let him go first. As he joined the tideway at 9.15am he looked back at us, gave us a thumbs-up sign and held his arms out wide as if to say all was clear.

You can imagine our horror as we pulled out onto the river to see a rubbish barge at full speed 50yds behind us. As he passed the wash literally rolled along the gunnels.

From the Tower Bridge website we had noticed that the bridge was due to be opened at 9.30 for an old thames sailing barge called Will and we hoped to be there in time to see the bridge being raised. As we approached Tower Bridge (the first en-route) we could see Will lining up on the upstream side and the bridge was cleared of traffic and pedestrians in preparation for lifting. We thought we had timed it perfectly. However the captain of Will came on the VHF and told the bridge to delay the lift as he could see two rubbish barges ploughing up the centre of the river and he wanted them to pass first. We had to pass under the side span of the bridge and this meant we had to pass on the wrong side of one of the high speed river buses who came the wrong side of the river from Tower Pier. Meanwhile the two barges shot upstream leaving a very choppy river behind them.

We were about 100yds upstream before the bridge finally opened for the sailing barge. After about 45 mins on the river and all this excitement we felt like old hands. Although it took a lot of concentration to keep the boat on course we soon felt more confident and by the houses of Parliament we could actually enjoy the sights.

As we progressed further upstream it almost beacame a bit dull as the number of other boats dropped off dramatically. As we passed Richmond we noticed the narrowboat ahead had started to slow down and we thought at first that he may have a problem. Also at this point we noticed that the widebeam boat that must have left Limehouse about 20 mins behind us, was catching up. We reached the Richmond half-tide weir and realised that the weirs were closed and a sign was illuminated saying use the lock for £5!! We loitered behind the other narrowboat for a while and then realised that we had arrived too soon, after about 5 minutes the weir gates were all raised and we carried on through the barrier and did not have to resort to the lock.

We arrived at Teddington Lock shortly afterwards, and once through moored the boat and took ourselves off for a well deserved lunch at the Anglers Pub.

The whole crew enjoyed the experience so much that we could have turned around and gone back.