Stratford City, on the outskirts of London, has seen some some major construction in the current millenium. The city played host to the 2012 summer Olympics one year after the opening of Westfield Stratford city, the third largest shopping mall in the UK and one of the largest in Europe. We’d built up a big…
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Westminster
The most well-known portion of the Changing of the Guard ceremony takes place on the Buckingham Palace grounds. But this is just the middle part of the ceremony, and the hardest to watch due to the crowds that form well in advance. Better views can be had of the guards marching to and from St….
Paris
In mid-February we took the high-speed train from London through the Channel Tunnel for a 2-night trip to Paris. It seems kind of amazing that we could get up in the morning, do some work on the boat in London and later have lunch by the Eiffel Tower, all without leaving the ground. This was…
Greenwich
The famed Royal Observatory in Greenwich is the location of the Prime Meridian and the origin of “Greenwich Mean Time”. The observatory has an excellent museum detailing the search for an accurate means of calculating longitude at sea, plus sweeping views from its hilltop perch. Other Greenwich attractions include the old Royal Naval College grounds,…
Tower of London
We’d always thought the Tower of London was just that, a tower. But it’s actually a castle, with 22 towers in total, that was the royal residence for England’s medieval monarchs and also is where the Crown Jewels are currently kept. The complex is right next to St. Katharine Docks where we are moored, so…
London Past and Present
London is a world-class city with modern architecture, a world financial center, and easy-to-see history going back more than two thousand years. We got a taste of it all on a clear day shortly after arriving into St. Katharine Docks. We started with the fabulous views from The Shard, completed in 2012, and stepped back…
St. Katharine Docks Arrival
Over a decade ago, we read a magazine article about a couple who moored their boat at St. Katharine Docks over the winter and it captivated us—we’ve been wanting to come here ever since. From Hermitage Community Moorings, we made a short run upriver and passed through the lock into St. Katherine Docks. It was…
Southampton to London
For the 207nm run from Southampton to London, we were planning to stop for the night in Queenborough off the mouth of the Thames before continuing to London the following morning. This would avoid a night running up the Thames. But we made much better time than expected, arriving at the Thames mid-morning, so continued…
Southampton
Prior to the thirty-one days in Southampton, the longest time we’d ever been in the yard was ten days. During our month-long Southampton yard trip we completed three major projects: replacing the muffler, rebuilding the crane, and replacing the cutlass bearings on the rudder shaft and the wing and main propeller shafts. We also completed…
Cutlass Bearing Replacements
The final major project we completed at Saxon Wharf in Southampton was replacing the cutlass bearings on the rudder shaft and the wing and main propeller shafts. On inspection after removing the cutlass bearing, our main propeller shaft was badly corroded with some of the pits running quite deep, so we opted to replace it…
