Well Saturday was a very eventful day.  We were both up at 5.30!  The alarm had been set for 6 but we didn’t need it.  Locking out was interesting, we were the middle boat of 3 and the gates open to let the water out but the water in the lock was several feet higher than the river so in effect we were sat at the top of a water fall.  My thought at the time was the lockkeepers do this all the time so we are fine! By 7.30 we were out on the Thames as heading east towards the Thames barrier.  We passed the O2 and Greenwich on the way.  We then turned to wait for the tide and the rest of the group to join us.  There were 19 boats in total, but only 3 at a time could lock out at Limehouse.  We then started up river back the way we had come.  The river was fairly calm and I spent some time on the stern with Paul.  A couple of times at the tiller as he needed to go below!  However as we got closer into the centre of London there is so much river traffic that it started to get quite lumpy.  There isn’t too much space on the stern so I decided I would be safer in the bow.  Even so the water was washing through the cratch and at times coming over the bow.  Although seeing Houses of Parliament, Westminster, Tower Bridge which we saw go up, etc from the river was amazing it was with some relief once we passed through towards Hammersmith and the river was calmer.  We then cruised on through Chiswick and Kew on finally to Teddington and the lock which brought us to the end of the cruise and on to the non Tidal Thames.  The trip was 36 miles in total which took about 9 hours.

Sunday saw us progress along the Thames through 2 more locks, a beautiful day so very busy with lots of cabin cruisers.  The Thames locks are manned and very big.  We then turned off on to the River Wey and as I write we are moored at Guildford.