In Limehouse it poured with rain, washing away any remaining evidence of salt and the sea crossing so that we went up the Thames the following morning in sunshine with clean decks and silky handrails. With hindsight we never would have chosen a sunny Sunday afternoon in the summer to come home – the river was busy with every form of water transport and every level of boating competence and it took until 5pm to finally get to Laleham although we did have a very pleasant stop with Donro III and Cassandra at Teddington. Friends had kindly sat on a mooring spot outside our house so we were able that evening (after the bottle of champagne of course) to begin the process of unpacking Isabela and filling the house with “stuff”. The following day we took Isabela back to her home berth in Shepperton having filled her up with fuel (for the first time since Middleburg) and water.
So the adventure is ended and now we must pay the bills and sort out the photographs and get the garden under some control!!! Isabela will also be needing some TLC so there is lots to do. Some nerdish figures for those who are interested – we did 1294 miles over ground, and 1380 distance over water in 288 engine hours using 1441 litres of fuel. This equates to 5 litres an hour, 3 in the inland waters and 8 over sea. An interesting figure for us is that in 3 months we have spent only 50% more on fuel than a friend did in a plastic fantastic crossing the channel!!! We have done some very early reflections on what worked and what didn’t eg Heather insisted on buying an iron and never once used it (neither did Paul) – but did pay for the whole of the experience by not having her hair done once either!! And we never did use the gangplank that we took all that way!!!
We would like to thank all those people who have stuck with the blog – you have Cassandra to blame as it was their idea that it would be helpful if we passed on some of our early experiences before others also went to Holland this year - I don’t think they realised what they had let themselves in for. Thank you to everyone who has made comments – it certainly helped to keep up the momentum knowing someone was reading it – we are sorry that we didn’t reply to everyone – the access to free or cheap internet has been very variable and we have routinely “posted “ the blog from non secure sites and therefore not able to use e mail directly. We also had problems putting photos on as clearly we have many more (hundreds) than we posted.
This is really sign off time!!! Here’s looking forward to the next adventure!!!
Paul and Heather
