Braving the Thames at Tower Bridge
 
Having a mooring at Tower Bridge sounds so glamorous.  Let me tell you straight off... It’s not.
 
We had arranged a mid stream mooring to house our boat on arrival from Holland.  If you’ve read about our journey over, you’ll know that getting off a mid stream mooring can be a little tricky without a tender (small boat).  
 
While it was far from ideal, we laughed a lot (normally when Skips got soaked from in an incoming wave) and made friends with the delightful “Eel men”.
 
The first thing that we did was buy a Tender, as
to continue fitting out the boat, access was vital. A trip to the Beaulieu ‘boat jumble’ soon solved that, for just £50! However, our delight in finding a cheap boat was soon tempered when we realised that our dingy was basically a glorified egg shell, with a tendency to tip over.
 
Not one but three people took a dunking in the Thames.  The  most memorable story was when Scotty came to the boat alone.  Skips had warned him (from personal experience) that the ‘eggshell’ was a little jittery and any sudden movement, she was likely to eject its contents into the tidal Thames.  This was not going to put off the mighty Scotty and after loading up the dingy, started the long row to the barge.
 
Without explaining the exact details, we know for a fact that Scotty went swimming that day.  Unfortunately, Scotty managed to save himself and a handful of bags, but the rest he watched float off down stream never to be seen again... (or so he thought).
 
Scotty, mourning the loss of his original (and very retro) Esso bag, digital camera and more importantly, his packed lunch; gets on with work.  Several hours later, the tide has turned and the Thames starts filling up again.  Unbeknown to Scotty, Eel man Steve is cycling home on the river walk way and sees a white bag floating back into London.  
 
Recognising it to be the missing Esso bag, Steve cycled back at double speed, hopped into his boat and carried out a daring rescue.  Move over David Hasselhoff...
 
The odds of this happening is ridiculous, I mean hours had passed, Steve being on his bike at the right time, glancing out to the river, recognising the bag.  Lets call it serendipity.
 
It’s fair to say that Scotty was pretty excited to be reunited with his bag, unfortunately the camera was broken and even worse, his lunch was completely inedible and returned to shore still hungry.
 
While we had a brilliant view and wonderfully helpful friends, we had plenty of struggles at Tower Bridge.  It was tidal and the water level drop was quite extraordinary. Every 6 hours, the tide would rise or fall by 6-7 metres.  If you didn’t keep an eye on the time, you could be stranded on the barge for several hours until the tide came back.  (yep did that)
 
Pleasure boats would go past so fast that the wash caused great Tsunami like waves.  At one point Skips was on the pontoon and I shouted “Incoming!”.  He thought he would be fine, but the gigantic wave leapt over the stern of Fenrir and completely pasted him onto the side of the building.  When he stepped away, dripping, he’d left a dry patch in his outline.  I laughed so much...
 
Other problems caused by the wash included the rudder violently moving, causing the wheel to spin.  Now that was extremely painful if you were unlucky enough to be standing in the wheel house.  After numerous injuries, it finally occurred to us to remove the wheel.  Why didn’t we think of that sooner?!!
 
Tuesday, 17 October 2006