Reflections on the Thames Tideway Trip

So, we have done the "dreaded" Thames tideway from Limehouse to Teddington. Was the dread well-founded, or is it all a fuss about nothing?

Would we do it again? Well, a few bridges into the journey, I (John) was heard to say that I wanted to turn around and start all over again. On reflection, while crossing one of the bridges by road a few days later, Fi wished she had done the trip without the camera, so that she could have taken in the experience more.

Is it something to be avoided by the faint-hearted? Certainly not - not if you prepare properly, read the guides and listen to the advice from the Limehouse lockies (who are, by the way, quite laid back about it all.) Tide tables for Limehouse are freely available. We read the IWA's "Thames Tideway Guide" (free to customers from Towergate Mardon insurance or available for 30p through the IWA bookshop), St Pancras Cruising Club's Thames Cruising Guide and the BW London Tideway Handbook downloaded from waterscape.com. I found the "Bridge Diagrams and Passage Notes" particularly useful to have printed out and to hand at the helm.

In preparation for leaving Limehouse Basin and to help decide which slot to take when booking (at least 24 hours in advance - but earlier is advisable), I worked out the high water times for Limehouse, Richmond and Teddington using the "Passage Planning Sheet" - which proved particularly useful for Richmond weir - see yesterday's blog.

Fi took over 400 pictures, but whittled them down to 244(!) for the Gallery and if you've got a while to spare and would like to relive our trip, there are several methods of doing so:

• Go to our Gallery, from Epiphany's Cruises choose the last River Thames, Limehouse and upstream September 2011 and then the 17 pages of sub-gallery Limehouse Basin to Teddington, or:
• If bandwidth isn't a consideration for you, view the pictures via the Photo Map link in the Gallery menu.This shows where the photos were shot marked on a zoomable Google Map.
  
  By hovering over the green marker pins you can see the photo titles and clicking on them will make the photos appear, or:
• If you use Google Earth, and again bandwidth isn't a consideration, you can view the pictures through that medium. The choice is yours.

Oh, and our Progress Map (courtesy of Water Explorer), with the new joined-up bit, now looks like this: