Leg 7 - Honfleur, France to Tower Bridge, London, via Calais

Date: Thursday 10th June 2004

Day: 322,

Local time: 1200 GMT -2

Leg Number: Leg 8, Honfleur to Calais

Position - Latitude, Longitude: 49/51N 00/01E

Position relative to land: Off Dieppe, English Channel

Distance travelled in last 24hrs: 38 nm

Distance sailed this Leg: 1,493 miles (2,765 km)

Total distance from Ardmore: 28,299, miles (52,410 kilometres)

Course: 057T

Speed: 6.0

Next Port: Calais

Approx distance to next port: 100nm

Wind: SSW F3

Sea: Light

Barometer: 1018 steady

Air Temp: 16C, with wind chill 16C

Sea temp: 15.7

Cloud cover: 100% drizzle

Bird sightings over the day:

- Northern Fulmar

- Gannet

- Lesser Black backed gull

- 1 Fruit bat nesting inbetween spinnaker poles (!)



Notes: We have been at sea all day and night, working the two new watches in easy weather, running close up along the Southern edge of the Traffic Exclusion Scheme. Ferries, including high-speed craft and hovercraft, operate at speeds up to 50 knots between the Channel Ports. Very different from our home in NW Scotland where 20 visiting yachts is a bumper year.



Nick, Marie Christine and I have been working the boat for 322 days, Igor for only 70 fewer but he is still a novice in this crowded situation.



All this would be a lot easier if we didn't have to be passing under Tower Bridge at precisely 1100 Thursday 17 June, broadcasting live from the boat on Radio 4, while school-children lift the Bridge and think for the moment about the Albatross and how they might save it from its imminent extinction.



Anyway, as I once said to my strong-willed adopted Father on the M4 "Well Pa, I'd better relax, you're 90 and we're doing 90!"



Marie Christine, Nick, Igor and I, we think it is worth it for the Albatross.



Into the mist......John.

Date: Friday 11th June 2004

Day: 323,

Local time: 1200 GMT -2

Leg Number:

Position - Latitude, Longitude: In Calais

Position relative to land: Alongside floating pontoon

Distance travelled in last 24hrs: 98 nm

Distance sailed this Leg: 136 miles

Total distance from Ardmore: 28,397, miles



Notes: Reached Calais safely. People very helpful. Much to do - always much to do. Tides to work out. All sorts of things are covered with mildew - is this a new age mushroom farm? Boat refuelled and watered, it's turning into a floating carpet of seaweed, we'll try and scrub some off. Thing is, to enjoy it all now. It has been a tremendous voyage. Seven books of diary logs and two especially large red books for Molly and Hughie, our grandchildren. Eight notebooks. 50 MiniDV cassettes. Highs 'highs' and low 'lows' - countless memories. Not a grey time.



Our aim is 'To prevent the needless slaughter of the Albatross'. That is what we need to keep our focus on. Full tick.



Into the mist......John.

Date: Saturday 12 June 2004

Day: 324


Position - Latitude, Longitude: In Calais




Notes: Quiet Saturday morning after a good night's sleep. All four of us in good spirits. Nick working studiously on tides. Marie Christine off to market, then cleaning furiously: cupboards, bilges, ceilings, floors, cooker, etc. Igor at work with hose and deck brush, ceaselessly. I tried to get up to date with various loose ends, for peace of mind. But that is beginning to slip away on the ebb tide....



Then, quite suddenly, the day was over. How many remain before my light goes out and I become an albatross for 80 weeks (or could it be 80 years)?



Into the mist......John.

Date: Sunday 13 June 2004

Day: 325

Local time: 1200 GMT -2

Leg Number:

Position - Latitude, Longitude: In Calais



Notes: Tidal Streams and Waypoints all day.



Marie Christine and I nipped into a crowded Calais cafe for English Breakfast at 8.30 p.m. to watch the second half of the football. I asked a stalwart England supporter if he would fill me in on what had been going, as I'd been away for a year.



His wife explained that David had been stitched-up, and like Victoria, she didn't believe a word of it. I was comforted. Over the years I have come to regard Beckham as the greatest living Englishman, there is much pressure on his shoulders.



The Leader of Nottingham Council, for apparently it was he, posed two crushing questions:



1. "So, you've had a lovely time, sailing round the world, and you haven't saved a single Albatross, have you?"



2. "Why does Blyth get all the Publicity?"



By this time, my hero had missed a penalty and England had performed the astonishing feat of subsiding from one goal up with two minutes to go, to losing 2-1.



Out on the pavement I was left pondering the two questions. I was definitely getting nearer home. Home of those sometimes born to lose.



The French meanwhile, were roaring through the darkened streets, hooting wildly and flying the tricolour.



Into the mist......John.

Date: Monday 14 June 2004

Day: 326,

Local time: 1200 GMT -2

Leg Number: Calais - Tower Bridge

Position - Latitude, Longitude: 51/16N 01/28W

Position relative to land: In Channel, offNE Foreland, Kent

Distance travelled in last 24hrs: 26nm

Distance sailed this Leg: 26nm

Total distance from Ardmore: 28,425 miles

Course: Variable

Speed: 7.6kts

Next Port: Tower Bridge

Approx distance to next port: tbc

Wind: S, F3

Sea: light

Barometer: 1028

Aiit Temperature: 20C, with wind chill 19C

Sea temp: 16.2C

Cloud cover: S25%

Bird sightings over the day: Terns and gulls



Notes: We motored out of Calais two hours before high tide, at 0700 UTC. Beautiful sunny day. Virtually no wind and rather hazy. Marie Christine and I were on watch at 1010 when we caught the first sight of the white cliffs of Dover. 326 days after leaving home. It brought back memories of our visit to Normandy landings last week. It was such a lovely day and our cliffs such a lovely sight, how different it all would have been for us if there had never been a D-Day.



The intricate navigation of the sand banks was made a lot easier with daylight and a flat calm.



At 1900, exactly as per Nick's schedule, we tied up alongside a battered WWII concrete lighter,in a muddy creek up the west Swale at Queensborough. We were back in Blighty. It was all very still. Looking into the sunset across the mudflats, surrounded now by power stations, pylons and rolling hills of scrap metal I tried to grasp the intangible thing we had tried to achieve over these past 326 days.



We went to bed early, ready for the final 45-mile push up the Thames on the tide, starting at 0530 tomorrow, with the weather deteriorating. We are now entering a place where everything is a mad rush, where Man is the only thing that matters to Man. Hopefully all that struggle and risk was not just a waste of time, as the man from Nottingham said. Surely the Petition and the struggle will have helped prevent the needless slaughter of the now far away Albatross.



Into the mist......John.

Date: Tuesday 15 June 2004

Day: 327,

Local time: 1200 GMT

Leg Number: Calais - Tower Bridge

Position - Latitude, Longitude: Tower Bridge, London

Position relative to land: Alongside HMS President

Distance travelled in last 24hrs: 45nm

Distance sailed this Leg: 71nm

Total distance from Ardmore: 28,470 miles

Course:

Speed:

Next Port:

Approx distance to next port:

Wind:

Sea:

Barometer: 1028

Aiit Temperature: 24C

Sea temp:

Cloud cover:

Bird sightings over the day: Terns and gulls



Notes: We left the muddy creek in Queenborough at 0530 on a glorious June morning. Motoring the 45 miles up the River Thames was a History lesson, beginning with fields of barley and of rye, clothing the world and meeting the sky.



Riding the flood tide, we were soon passing the Thames Barrage, Canary
Wharf and the Dome. But none of these places existed when I last steamed down this way, nearly 40 years ago. It was a snowy night in January 1956 and I was on my way to South Africa and the Albatrosses, an eighteen-year-old Cadet aboard a general cargo Liberty Ship, the Clan Kennedy.



I'm afraid the Albatrosses are not doing so well down there nowadays: 93% of the Hake fishing boats are not compliant with regulations, Sam Petersen of BirdLife explained, in Capetown last October. "It's not a problem, we kill very few birds", the fishermen told her, "that's because you've already killed nearly all of them!" she replied.



We rounded a bend and there was Tower Bridge. Huge. Blocking further
progress up the River. We had made it, 326 days out from NW Scotland, we had made it. Facing the Bridge, we tied-up alongside HMS President landing stage. Once ashore the familiar rush enveloped us. As Banjo Patterson would put it:



"And the hurrying people daunt me and their pallid faces haunt me
As they shoulder one another in their rush and nervous haste."



But of course, in reality, they are unfailingly courteous when you ask the way to Safeways.



The closing date for the Petition has been extended to 20 June, in the hope of reaching 100,000 signatures before Marie Christine and I fly to Rome on 23 June. Thanksalotty for signing.



Into the mist...John.

Now go on to 16-24 June 2004, the Tower Bridge Stopover.

Back to the Contents page