English Channel, westbound for Devon
London! The bustle of the Saturday streets stilled around us and road traffic over Tower Bridge came to a halt. Endeavour cast off from the World War II cruiser Belfast, the temporary mooring from which we had boarded her an hour before. No time to lose: we must catch the tide. Hundreds watched from road and embankment: Tower Bridge is opening! We all thronged the deck too, as this was all for us, and about as dramatic a departure from a capital city as you can get. We held our breath as she squeezed between the towers and then we slid away down the Thames on the gathering tide. Sir Horace James’ original 1894 structure was powered by coal-fired, steam-driven hydraulics to lift the bridge and, like many masterpieces, was ridiculed by critics of the time as ‘gimcrack’. But its traditional design blended perfectly with the Tower of London on the north shore, and it has become one of the enduring landmarks of the city. Though the docks of London were pounded during the World War II Blitz, miraculously Tower Bridge escaped unscathed. We sailed downstream, past the Cutty Sark, and the Maritime College, with the Royal Observatory away up on the hill, reminding us that we were about to cross the Greenwich Meridian. Captain Cook had also looked up at the same view as he set off in the first Endeavour, and used the one o’clock signal from the Observatory to calibrate his chronometers for the first real test of accurate longitude.
Now we passed the London Barrage, the Millennium Dome, Tilbury Docks and out into the widening estuary. This is the start of our full circumnavigation of the British Isles in which we will explore the successive waves of immigration which made British culture what is today: Neolithic people, Celts, Angles, Saxons, Vikings all swept in from the continent to leave their mark on the islands. London itself is one of the few surviving Celtic names in southeast England: Lon-Dun, meaning Lun’s Fort, commemorates the Celtic God Lun. We passed several reminders of how vulnerable the Thames roadstead was to invasion. Tilbury Fort, established by Henry VIII, was where Elizabeth I reviewed the troops just prior to the Spanish Armada; Coal House Fort was built to face the Napoleonic threat. The sun was setting as we rounded the Isle of Thanet, and with a stiffening southerly breeze and failing light the bridge officers were busy watching out for the notorious Goodwin Sands where many a ship has foundered. Now we could turn the corner: on our starboard bow the bright lights of Dover, and the yellow glow on the port horizon was the coast at Calais, barely 18 miles away. No wonder this was the traditional access to Britain from the continent, and why this shore is bristling with forts and castles. We will see much, much more in the coming weeks but as we make our way west along the English Channel, we have time today to find our sea legs, get to know fellow shipmates, and reflect on the excitement to come.
London! The bustle of the Saturday streets stilled around us and road traffic over Tower Bridge came to a halt. Endeavour cast off from the World War II cruiser Belfast, the temporary mooring from which we had boarded her an hour before. No time to lose: we must catch the tide. Hundreds watched from road and embankment: Tower Bridge is opening! We all thronged the deck too, as this was all for us, and about as dramatic a departure from a capital city as you can get. We held our breath as she squeezed between the towers and then we slid away down the Thames on the gathering tide. Sir Horace James’ original 1894 structure was powered by coal-fired, steam-driven hydraulics to lift the bridge and, like many masterpieces, was ridiculed by critics of the time as ‘gimcrack’. But its traditional design blended perfectly with the Tower of London on the north shore, and it has become one of the enduring landmarks of the city. Though the docks of London were pounded during the World War II Blitz, miraculously Tower Bridge escaped unscathed. We sailed downstream, past the Cutty Sark, and the Maritime College, with the Royal Observatory away up on the hill, reminding us that we were about to cross the Greenwich Meridian. Captain Cook had also looked up at the same view as he set off in the first Endeavour, and used the one o’clock signal from the Observatory to calibrate his chronometers for the first real test of accurate longitude.
Now we passed the London Barrage, the Millennium Dome, Tilbury Docks and out into the widening estuary. This is the start of our full circumnavigation of the British Isles in which we will explore the successive waves of immigration which made British culture what is today: Neolithic people, Celts, Angles, Saxons, Vikings all swept in from the continent to leave their mark on the islands. London itself is one of the few surviving Celtic names in southeast England: Lon-Dun, meaning Lun’s Fort, commemorates the Celtic God Lun. We passed several reminders of how vulnerable the Thames roadstead was to invasion. Tilbury Fort, established by Henry VIII, was where Elizabeth I reviewed the troops just prior to the Spanish Armada; Coal House Fort was built to face the Napoleonic threat. The sun was setting as we rounded the Isle of Thanet, and with a stiffening southerly breeze and failing light the bridge officers were busy watching out for the notorious Goodwin Sands where many a ship has foundered. Now we could turn the corner: on our starboard bow the bright lights of Dover, and the yellow glow on the port horizon was the coast at Calais, barely 18 miles away. No wonder this was the traditional access to Britain from the continent, and why this shore is bristling with forts and castles. We will see much, much more in the coming weeks but as we make our way west along the English Channel, we have time today to find our sea legs, get to know fellow shipmates, and reflect on the excitement to come.
