Limehouse to Tollesbury – 69.2 miles in 11 hours 55 minutes
A return trip today from Limehouse back to Tollesbury. Richard came up to London Thursday evening to help me back and Anne left early morning to drive home. Once Anne had left, we locked out at 6.15am and by 6.20 were making our way down the river. I have been down the river past the Millenium Dome several times now and always wondered what the tangled web of steel outside the dome was. I had never realised that it is an Anthony Gormley statue called the Quantum Cloud. Richard knew all about it and even knew the best angle to view it from. For the first time, I realised that in the centre is a large human figure – apparently based on Gormley’s own body.
The wind was relatively light as we headed down the river and so we motored down to just after the QEII bridge. We picked up a breeze there and sailed to just beyond the Shoebury beacons. Once we bore away up the coast, the wind went a little lighter and with the breeze more or less directly from behind, the apparent wind was too little to make good progress against the new flood and so we had to turn on the motor. We motored from there right down the Blackwater but frustratingly just after the Bench Head a nice F5-6 blew up too late for us to take advantage of it. It did though make for an interesting entrance into the marina, which we just managed at HW. Immaculate timing.
